Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry
by Koinaka
Summary: When Harri Potter discovered that she was a witch, she'd been positively delighted. Having grown up with Petunia "Young Ladies Mustn't" Dursley, she'd made it her goal in life to do everything that a young lady ought not to do, including being a witch.
1. Chapter 1

Alright everyone, here you go. The first chapter of Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hope you like it! I've been super nervous about this, so please leave me a review and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor his universe. I did take some dialogue here from the Philosopher's Stone.

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Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again

By _Koinaka_

_

* * *

_

Chapter One_  
_The Girl-Who-Lived

Harrietta Lilian Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, was proud to say that she was anything but normal, thank you very much. She was the last person you'd expect to be involved in anything ordinary. You see, Harrietta Potter was a witch. Not the sort with green skin and flying monkeys, but a real wand-waving, potion brewing witch.

She hadn't always known she was a witch. In fact, until she was eleven, she'd thought that magic only existed in fairy tales. She had been positively delighted to discover she was wrong. Growing up with Petunia "Young Ladies Musn't" Dursley, her goal in life was to do everything that a Proper Young Lady Ought Not To Do. She found that being a witch fit the bill quite nicely.

Harri's eleventh birthday began in the same manner as any other day. She ate breakfast with her family and then spent the morning reading quietly in her room.

Having always wanted a daughter of her own, Aunt Petunia had a tendency to treat Harri as her own personal life-size doll much to her utter dismay. It was for that reason that Harri was inside instead of out. She had wanted to spend the morning at the play park up the street with Dudley and his friends, but Aunt Petunia hadn't wanted her to dirty up the frilly frock she was currently wearing in anticipation of her birthday party that was to begin at noon.

The ten o'clock hour found Harri with her face pressed against the glass of her bedroom window. She watched as Mrs. Donnelly, from number six Privet Drive, peered out her door for a long moment before opening it fully and ushering a ruddy faced man that was most certainly not Mr. Donnelly from the house. Not even a full half hour later, Harri watched as Mr. Donnelly pulled into the drive with the Donnelly's twelve year old daughter, Margot, in tow. Harri suspected the only reason the Donnellys had merited an invitation to her birthday party was that Dudley fancied Margot a great deal.

By eleven o'clock, Harri could scarcely sit still. As such, her room was in a complete state of disarray. There was one stack of books on her bed and another stack on the floor. The stack on the floor was strewn from her bookshelf to her wardrobe. Littered on the rest of the floor was a thick pad of drawing paper, a varied assortment of colored pencils, and several finished drawings. Harri made quick work of straightening the mess into what appeared to be a slightly more organized mess before nearly skipping downstairs. Harri very much wanted to skip, but she didn't think she could stomach the reprimand that would earn her.

Aunt Petunia was fluffing her already perfectly fluffed pillows when she entered the drawing room.

"Look at you!" Aunt Petunia said, her thin, horse-like face turned up to a frown. "_What _have you done to your hair?"

"Nothing!" she protested at once. Her hair had been a point of contention within the Dursley household as long as she could remember. No matter what she did to it, it always managed to be an unruly mess. Despite that, Harri loved her hair because it was one thing she shared with her mother. Her green eyes were another. Her aunt never spoke of her mother, but she had given Harri several old photographs of the two sisters when they were children. The only difference between the two that she could find was that her hair was a mess of waves while her mother's had been stick straight.

Aunt Petunia opened her mouth to further admonish her but was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

"Guests arriving at this hour? It's not even half past!" Her aunt looked scandalized at the very idea of someone not arriving at the prescribed time. "Get the door, then, Harrietta, and take them directly into the backyard. Dudders should be along soon with his friends..."

She continued talking, but Harri wasn't paying her any attention. She was too busy staring wide-eyed at the peculiar looking man in front of her. He was tall and far too thin with stringy looking black hair and an abnormally large nose. He was wearing what appeared to be a dress and -- _was that a cloak?  
_

"Don't stand there with the door ajar, girl," snapped Aunt Petunia. "Show your guest to the backyard!"

Harri finally found her voice. She tore her eyes away from the man, who was staring at her in return, and and back to where Aunt Petunia was standing. "It's not a guest. It's just a man."

Her aunt frowned as she made her way to the door. "Tell them we're not interested in whatever it is they're selling --- _you! _What are you doing here?"

The man smiled. It was not a pleasant smile either. His mouth was filled with very yellow, very uneven, teeth. "I'm surprised you even remember me, Tuney --"

Whatever else the man was going to say was cut off by Aunt Petunia slamming the door. She locked it for good measure before turning to Harri.

"Go to your room this instant!"

But Harri had no intention of going to her room. Especially not when there were peculiar men about! "Who was that man? Why was he dressed so strangely?" she asked.

_"Go - to - your - room!" _Harri had never seen her aunt look so unhinged before that she was almost startled into doing as she was told. _  
_

"I think not."

Harri jumped and Aunt Petunia shrieked loudly as the peculiar man was now inside pointing at them with a long, thin, twig.

"Now, then, where were we?" He murmured to himself, twirling the twig in his hand all the while. He turned away from her aunt and faced Harri fully. "Ah, yes, Miss Potter, no doubt you were worrying about the delay in receiving your Hogwarts acceptance letter. The headmaster felt it prudent to deliver it in person in case you had any questions." He held out a rather thick envelope for her to take.

Harri cast a sly glance at her aunt from the corner of her eye. Her face was an alarming shade of red not unlike Uncle Vernon's face whenever he was angry which happened to be quite often. "My Hogwarts acceptance letter?" she asked him, but she did take the letter. She only had a chance to read her address, however, before it was ripped from her hands. Its address was remarkably accurate. It was addressed to a _Miss H. Potter, Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. _

The man's black eyes narrowed. "Yes, your Hogwarts letter. Your letter is merely a formality as you've been down for attendance since your birth--"

"She'll not be going," Aunt Petunia's shrill voice cut in. "I swore when I took her in that I'd put a stop to it!"

The man seemed to swell in front of her, one of his lips curled into a sneer. "Of course she'll be going. I'd like to see you, muggle that you are, try and stop her!"

"Going where?" asked Harri, who had been following the exchange with a great deal of interest. "Hogwarts? Is that a secondary school, then? I've already been accepted to Kent College Pembury."

"Too right," Aunt Petunia said, seeming to recover a bit of her natural skin color, "and that's exactly where you'll be attending."

The peculiar man regarded Aunt Petunia coolly. "I think _not_," he said once more. He produced another envelope from within his cloak and handed it once more to Harri. "Lily's daughter attend a muggle secondary school? Absolutely _not_."

She wasn't quite certain what a muggle was, but it couldn't be anything good if the man's tone was anything to go by. She ignored her aunt's retort, choosing instead to hurriedly open the envelope before it could be ripped away again. She gasped when she read the letterhead. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" Now the man's odd appearance made sense. He dressed like some of the wizards in her storybooks! If she had been accepted to a school of witchcraft and wizardry, then that could only mean one thing... "Magic is _real_?"

"Yes, and you, Miss Potter, are a witch."

After that, Aunt Petunia had reluctantly led the man, who introduced himself to Harri as Professor Snape, the Potions Professor at Hogwarts, and Harri to the kitchen and allowed him to explain fully while she telephoned the party guests to inform them that the party was canceled because Harri had unexpectedly taken ill.

Discovering that she was a witch, just like her mother before her, was the best birthday present she'd ever received -- even if it caused Aunt Petunia to adopt a pinched expression whenever they were in the same room as one another and for Uncle Vernon to turn a shocking shade of purple when he'd learn of her acceptance to the wizarding school.

Professor Snape returned early the next morning to accompany Harri as she purchased her school supplies. Having read and reread her letter until she had it memorized, she wondered where they might be going. She doubted that Tesco would have the sort of things they required. She doubted even a big city like London -- where they were currently traveling to -- would have such exotic items such as dragon hide gloves and wands.

"Can we buy all of this in London?" she wondered aloud.

"If you know where to look," was the Professor's curt reply.

The trip through London was quite thrilling for Harri as she'd never been before. She'd never visited many places outside of Surrey before, and she was rather looking forward to visiting more. They passed by an extraordinary number of interesting buildings and shops before stopping in front of a dingy, rundown looking pub called the Leaky Cauldron.

"Here we go. Stick close to me and speak to no one," he warned her before entering the building.

He needn't have even bothered with a warning as the occupants of the pub were struck silent by the newcomer's appearances. It was the barkeeper who broke the silence,

"Good Lord, is this -- can this be--? Bless my soul...Harrietta Potter. What an honor!"

With that proclamation, the crowd converged on them, each one welcoming Harri back and attempting to greet her personally. Professor Snape had explained to her the circumstances surrounding her parents death -- they'd been murdered, not killed in a car crash as she'd been told -- as well as her fame, but she hadn't expected this.

Blushing hotly, she stuttered out replies and returned greetings as she and the Professor made their way through the crowd. She was relieved when they made it into the alleyway behind the dingy pub.

The previous scene was forgotten entirely when she got her first glimpse of the wizarding world -- Diagon Alley.

They went to the Wizarding bank, Gringotts, first to retrieve some money from her vault. The bank was run by goblins which Harri thought was just brilliant. These goblins looked nothing like the goblins she'd seen in any of her films, but she suspected that the filmmakers had never seen a real live goblin before. Or a real live witch for that matter.

Harri took in the various shops with wide-eyed amazement. To think that there was an entire world hidden in London! Professor Snape led her to a shop called Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions with the instructions not to step foot outside of the shop without him. While she was being fitted for her uniform, he would head to the Apothecary and retrieve what she needed from there.

Madam Malkin was a rather rotund woman wearing mauve from head to toe. Harri scrunched her nose in distaste -- she hated all shades of pink! She took Harri to the back of the shop where she saw a pale boy with blonde hair being fitted as well. When he saw her, he made a face as if he'd suddenly smelt something particularly foul.

"Hello," she said, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," answered the boy.

"It's quite exciting, isn't it? In a months time, we'll be off to study magic!"

"Know what house you'll be in yet?" The boy asked a few minutes later. He had a haughty, drawling voice that Harri didn't much care for, but it would take more than one unpleasant boy to ruin her good mood,

"Gryffindor, I hope. Both of my parents were Gryffindors, but that doesn't always matter. Still, I rather hope I end up there."

"Gryffindor?" said the boy with a slight sneer. "Why would you ever want to be a Gryffindor? Everyone says Slytherin is the best house there is."

Harri narrowed her eyes. "Obviously not everyone says it --"

But the boy cut her off. "I say, look its Professor Snape," he said nodding towards the front window. "He's one of the professors at Hogwarts, you know. He's a good friend of my father's."

"I know who he is," she told him tartly. "He's the one who delivered my letter yesterday and told me all about the wizarding world."

The boy looked at her aghast but before he could comment further, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear."

Harri jumped off the stool, thankful that she didn't have to talk to the boy any longer. The rest of the day was spent shopping. Professor Snape led her into shop after shop. The only shop that they lingered for longer than was absolutely necessary in was the bookshop, Flourish and Blotts, were they purchased her required books plus a number of additional titles, including Hogwarts, a History.

Their last stop of the day was to retrieve her wand. This took the largest amount of time by far as Harri had to try out wand after wand before finally finding one that suited her. She tried not to think about the fact that her wand held the brother core to the wizard who'd murdered her parents. She was largely successful, though this was rather difficult as both Olivander and Professor Snape had been horrified by that.

It was late afternoon by the time Professor Snape returned her to Little Whinging with an envelope containing her ticket for the Hogwarts Express, the train that would take her from London to Hogwarts which was in Scotland.

The next month seemed to go on for an eternity. Her family largely ignored the fact that she was going to be attending a school of witchcraft and wizardry instead of what they called normal school. The only time Aunt Petunia discussed it at all, in fact, was to tell Harri she wasn't to discuss it. If anyone asked, she was to tell them she was attending an exclusive school for the gifted. That way, at least, the Dursleys wouldn't seem abnormal.

Being seen as anything other than normal was the Dursleys' greatest fear.

Finally, the morning of September First arrived.

Harri was up with the sun. Within minutes, she was fully dressed and ready to go. Unfortunately, she still had several hours to go. By the time her family woke up, she was full of restless energy.

At breakfast, both Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept sending her wary glances. Dim though Dudley might be -- and he was quite dim, at that -- he picked up on the tension at once.

"What's _she _done now?" he asked around a large mouthful of kippers.

"Nothing, Dudders," Aunt Petunia responded at once.

Uncle Vernon muttered to himself before giving Dudley a smile that resembled a grimace more than anything else. "If we have to drive all the way to London to drop _her _off, let's not waste the opportunity. We'll make a day of it, shall we? One last hurrah before Dudley heads off to Smeltings. What do you say, love?"

Aunt Petunia gave him a terse nod, her pinched expression never leaving her face.

There had been several rather interesting changes since Harri had discovered she was a witch. The first had been that she was no longer subjected to Aunt Petunia's lectures on what young ladies ought not to do. The second was that none of them referred to her by name. They avoided her completely when they could manage it. When they couldn't, they stuck to _she _or _girl_. Harri found she didn't truly mind. It wasn't as if she'd ever been particularly close to them, after all. Dudley had spent a lot of her childhood bullying her. She'd never had many friends at school because all of the boys were frightened of Dudley and Harri had never gotten along with the girls. She'd never had any interest in playing with dolls and the like. Once she'd gotten old enough to outsmart Dudley, she'd been able to make some friends in the neighborhood.

All in all, she didn't expect to miss them in the least.

"You haven't forgotten to pack any of your _things_, have you?" Aunt Petunia asked her when Uncle Vernon brought her trunk down from her room.

Harri shook her head. "No. I got everything." And she had. She'd repacked everything the night before -- all of her robes, her books, her parchment and quils, her things from the Apothecary, her telescope, and her regular clothes. She was also bringing along some of her normal books and her drawing things. She was leaving behind all of her videotapes and cassette tapes because a lot of Muggle things, like tellies and stereos, didn't work right around magic. Plus, she didn't think she would have much time for them anyway.

The trip to London was spent in silence. Once they were at Kings Cross Station, Uncle Vernon put her trunk on one of the trolley's before heading back to the car park. Only Aunt Petunia accompanied her inside the station.

"Where's Platform nine and three quarters?" Harri asked as she looked from Platform nine and Platform ten.

"Be quiet," Aunt Petunia hissed. She looked around nervously as if she might be caught at any moment before lowering her too-long neck until her mouth was hovering around Harri's ear. "I've only been there _once_, mind, but if I remember correctly, you have to run into that wall to get to your platform." She jerked her head towards the stone wall.

Harri glanced at the wall suspiciously. It looked like a normal wall, but then again so had the wall they used to get into Diagon Alley.

Just then a pack of red-headed people wearing an odd assortment of clothing, all pulling along trolleys of large trunks and other things such as _owl _cages, passed by them.

"-- packed with Muggles, of course --"

At that, Aunt Petunia stiffened beside her. Her face looked like she was sucking on a rather sour lemon as the plump woman turned to speak to them.

"Pardon me," the woman said kindly, "but I can't help noticing you look a bit lost. First time at Hogwarts, too, dearie?"

Harri nodded.

"Not to worry, dear, not to worry. It's Ron's first time, too." She pointed at a red-haired boy with long limbs and far too many freckles.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Aunt Petunia said uneasily. Under the woman's watchful eyes, she bid farewell to Harri and hurried back towards the entrance of the station.

The woman gave Harri another smile before gesturing to the oldest looking boy. "All right, you go first, Percy."

Harri watched as the boy, Percy, pushed his trolley straight into the wall! Instead of merely running into it, he vanished into thin air! She was still watching as two identical boys vanished through it as well. She jumped as a hand fell on her shoulder.

"Why don't you go on before Ron?"

Harri eyed the wall speculatively for a second before nodding. "Thanks," she said breathlessly.

It was a bit difficult to maneuver her large trunk by herself but she finally managed to get up a bit of speed. She closed her eyes as she neared the wall. If she was going to crash into it, she'd rather not see it!

But she never crashed. Instead, she found herself on the other side staring at a scarlet steam engine. A sign overhead said "Hogwarts' Express, eleven o'clock".

"Brilliant," she breathed as she took in the the crowded platform. Much like Diagon Alley, this place was crawling with witches and wizards.

She wasn't sure where to go now. She tried to find the plump woman from before but the crowd was much too thick for that. With a sigh, she pulled her trunk to an empty compartment at the back of the train and attempted to heave it inside by herself. After several attempts, she collapsed on the ground panting heavily. She made a loud noise of discontentment as she pushed her hair away from her face.

"Want a hand?" It was one of the red haired boys from before. Not the oldest, but one of the identical boys.

"Yes, please, if you don't mind."

"Oy Fred, c'mere and help!" he bellowed then.

The boys, Fred and George, they'd said, made easy work of her trunk. In no time at all, it was tucked away in the corner of the compartment.

"Thanks," Harri said. "I reckon I'd have been there all day trying to lift that." She swatted her hair away from her face once more.

Fred's eyes widened. "What's that?" he breathed, pointing at the lightning-bolt shaped scar on her forehead.

"Blimey," said the other as he met his brother's eyes. "You're _her_, aren't you?"

Harri narrowed her eyes. "Her who?" she asked coolly.

"Harrietta Potter, that's who!" the boys chorused.

She scrunched her nose at their use of her full name. Only her aunt and teachers ever called her Harrietta. "Harri," she corrected them primly. "But yes, I am. What's it to you?"

But before they could respond, a voice floated in through the open window calling their names.

"See you at Hogwarts!" They said. They flashed her identical grins before hopping off the train.

A few minutes after the train lurched to a start, her compartment door opened and the boy from before, Ron she thought he was called, poked his head inside.

"Anyone sitting here?" he asked pointing at the empty seat opposite Harri. "Everywhere else is full."

She shook her head and the boy sat down. She turned back to watch out the window as the countryside passed by.

The compartment slid open again. It was Fred and George. "Oh, good, you found her. Look, Ron, we'll be down in the middle. Lee Jordan's got himself a giant tarantula down there!"

"Has he really?" asked Harri. She stood up as they nodded excitedly. "Mind if I come along, then? I've only seen ever seen tarantula at the zoo."

The twins considered Harri for a long moment.

"Alright," they said together.

"Want to come with us?" she asked the boy.

"No way," the boy said with a horrified shudder.

"Suit yourself, then," she said with a shrug before following the twins out of the compartment.

It turned out that Lee Jordan was the boy from the platform with the dreadlocks. He, like the twins, was in his third year. The tarantula was covered with a thin coat of hair that Harri discovered was soft to the touch.

The boys had seemed a bit uncomfortable sharing a compartment with a girl, but seeing her touch a tarantula without even batting an eyelash eased their discomfort. The twins introduced her as simply Harri, but as Lee's eyes had flitted from her face to her forehead, she reckoned he knew who she was. The Girl-Who-Lived, they called her.

After everyone in the compartment had a turn touching the tarantula, the boys began to talk about Quidditch.

"What's that?" she asked curiously. Professor Snape hadn't mentioned it, and she'd only glanced through _Hogwarts, A History. _

The three boys all exchanged horrified looks before launching into a rather in-depth explanation on Quidditch complete with explanations of their favorite professional Quidditch teams.

"I've never ridden a broom, but it sounds like loads of fun. I wonder if I'll be any good at it."

The twins shared a look before nodding their heads in succession.

"Your dad was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, didn't you know?" said George.

Fred picked up where he left off. "He's got a trophy for it and everything. We've polished it loads of times in detention."

Aunt Petunia had never spoken about her father, so this caught her attention. "Really? What position?"

"Chaser," they said in unison.

"We both play on the Gryffindor team," George told her.

"What position?"

"Beaters."

Around half past noon there was a knock on their door. Harri opened it to find an elderly witch pushing a cart full of what appeared to be wizarding treats.

"Anything off the cart, dears?"

Lee pushed passed her and grabbed a couple of items. The witch gave Harri a bright smile when he'd left. "Anything for you?" she asked kindly.

Not knowing what was good and what wasn't, Harri just bought a bit of everything. She dumped the armful of treats on the seat between her and Fred.

"Not hungry, are you?" said George with a smile.

Harri shrugged. "I've never had wizarding sweets before. Help yourself, if you want. I daresay I'll be hard pressed to eat all of it.

She received two broad smiles in return. They ate their way through the treats in relative silence. The three boys took turns telling Harri about the sweets. She'd been horrified to eat a jelly bean that tasted uncannily of curry, but the horror had faded when she saw the chocolate frog jump she'd just opened spring to life.

"Brilliant," she breathed even as it jumped straight out the window.

"Bad luck, that," Fred said.

George nodded sagely. "They've only got one good jump in 'em."

Lee peered over her shoulder as she looked at the card that came with the frog. "Who'd ya get?" he asked her around a mouthful of Pumpkin Pasty.

"Albus Dumbledore," Harri said. There was a picture of a very old man with long silver hair and bright blue eyes. He wore half-moon glasses that were perched on top of his very long, crooked nose. She turned the card over and read it aloud. "Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling." She turned it back over only to discover that the spot where he had been was now empty.

She gasped. "He's gone!"

"'Course he is," said Lee. "You don't expect him to hang about all day, do you?"

"Busy man, Dumbledore is," Fred said in confirmation.

George ruffled her hair. "Don't you worry, he'll be back."

Harri glared at him, but he didn't seem fazed a bit. "In the muggle world, people in photos don't just wander about, you know. They stay put."

"Blimey, I reckon that's dead boring," George told her. "Well, here they move, and not just trading cards either. All pictures." He snatched the magazine that Lee'd been reading away from him and pushed it towards Harri.

Harri opened it and watched with amazement as the figures in the various photographs flew around on their brooms. They twisted and turned in all sorts of spectacular looking moves. "That's ace!" she exclaimed.

The three boys nodded.

"Mind if I read this for a bit?" she asked Lee.

He shook his head, grinning as he pulled another out of his satchel. "I've got loads more. Keep it."

A few minutes later, the compartment door slid open to reveal a round-faced boy.

Harri looked up from the magazine. "Hello," she said, giving him a smile. He looked to be near tears.

"Sorry, but have you seen a toad? I seem to have lost mine, and I heard there's a tarantula on board."

When Harri and the boys shook their head, the boy wailed. "I'll never find him! Gran will be so angry that I've lost him before I even got to the castle."

"He'll turn up," Harri assured him.

Fred and George nodded."Don't worry about the tarantula," they said.

Lee nudged the box containing the spider. "Besides, Baby doesn't eat toads. He prefers flies."

"You named your tarantula Baby?" Harri asked, her voice incredulous. At Lee's nod, she turned back to the boy. "Want some help finding your toad?"

"That's alright," the boy said, miserably. "Someone's already helping me, but if you see him..."

"I'll be sure to grab him," Harri said.

The boy sighed and backed out of their compartment. The boys began to chortle loudly.

"That was brave of 'im," said George.

Fred grinned widely. "Must be an ickle firstie. I wouldn't bother looking for my toad, if I'd brought one."

Lee snorted. "Like your mum would trust you two with a living creature. Why else would she have given Scabbers to Ron instead of you."

The twins were the picture of innocence. "You wound us, Lee, and to think you're our closest friend!"

"Who's Scabbers?" asked Harri when they'd settled down again.

"Our pet rat. Nasty little bugger."

George agreed heartily. "He was Percy's but he got a new post owl so now Ron has him, the great useless lump."

Harri sighed wistfully. "Must have been fun having such a large family. All I've got is my cousin Dudley, and he's as dumb as a rock. Looks like one, too."

"We got two more brothers," Fred said.

"And a sister. You can have 'em all if you want," George offered easily with a grin.

Harri stayed with the twins and Lee until it was time for them to get changed into their robes.

"Good luck at the sorting," they told her. "We'll be waiting for you in Gryffindor."

A voice echoed through the train as she hurried back to her compartment. "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

She couldn't believe it. In just five minutes, she would finally arrive at Hogwarts.


	2. Chapter 2

Alright everyone! Here's the next chapter. I didn't get much response for the previous one, but I do hope everyone is enjoying it. I am a bit nervous about this chapter, as I'm not quite sure I've got a handle on Harri's character yet. I do plan on going through the entirety of Harri's time at Hogwarts, andI've made a rough outline of the Philosopher's Stone. So far it looks like it'll take six chapters to get through the first year with what I've got planned. If you aren't interested in seeing Harri's journey through Hogwarts, please let me know, but NO FLAMES, please.

I hope to keep chapters the same length as the previous one (around 5k), but some may be longer while some may be shorter. I had more planned for this chapter, but it felt right to end it here. Be sure to visit my profile and participate in the poll about future pairings.

* * *

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

_

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_

Chapter Tw_o  
_Down the Rabbit Hole

Harri arrived back in her compartment just in time for the train to lurch to a stop. She pushed her way through the crowd and onto the dark platform.

"Well, aren't you a naughty little toad!" she exclaimed as she caught sight of the missing toad. The toad in question was in grave danger of being crushed by the rushing students spilling forth from the train. She snatched him up before that could happen, tucking him away safely in her pocket.

Just then, a large man -- the largest Harri had ever seen -- made his way onto the platform. He had a wild mane of black hair, a bushy beard, a ruddy complexion, and a booming voice that echoed throughout the platform easily.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

After patting her pocket to make sure the toad was still there, she followed the giant to where he was waiting for the first years.

He gave a last glance towards the crowd before facing them and calling out once more, "C'mon, follow me — any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Harri shivered as they made their way down a narrow path, stumbling only slightly as she navigated the path in the dark. She gasped as they came around the curve and arrived at the edge of a lake. Across the lake, glittering in the moonlight like something out of one of her storybooks, was a castle.

"Hogwarts," she breathed.

It was amazing. It was unreal. It was _magical_. It was to be her home for the next seven years. She couldn't believe how lucky she was!

"No more'n four to a boat!" the giant called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore.

The first year students began climbing into them. Harri looked around before noticing the toad's owner. He was sitting with the twins' brother and the bushy-haired girl. She waved to them and made her way over to their boat.

She gave the toadless boy a smile as she climbed in. "I was hoping to see you again," she told him. She pulled the wiggling toad out from her robe pocket. "I found him on the platform."

"T-thanks," the boy replied, flashing Harri a watery smile.

"I'm Harri, by the way," she told them.

"Neville Longbottom."

"Ron Weasley."

"Hermione Granger."

Harri sighed as the boat began to move. "I heard a squid lives in the lake. I do hope we see it. That would be brilliant, don't you think?"

Neville gulped. "A squid?" he asked nervously.

She nodded excitedly. "Ron's brothers told me all about it. Don't worry about it, though," she added hastily at Neville's fearful expression. "It almost never pulls a student overboard."

"Almost never," Neville repeated in a horrified tone.

"According to _Hogwarts, a History_, the last time was a hundred and fifty years ago. They found the boy's remains on the shore the next morning," Hermione informed them primly.

Harri glared at the other witch as both Ron and Neville scooted away from the edges of the boat. Before she could respond though, they pulled up to a sort of underground chamber. When they stopped, she and her three companions clambered out of the boats.

The students followed the giant and his bobbing light up a narrow set of stairs until they reached a large wooden door. He lifted his large beefy hand and knocked three times on the door. The door opened at once to reveal a stern-looking witch. She introduced herself as Professor McGonagall before ushering them inside a large stone corridor. She then left them with the instructions to ready themselves for their sorting.

Harri gasped loudly as four pearly-white forms floated past them. She turned to a dark-skinned boy that was standing beside her. "Are those... _ghosts_?" she asked.

He gave her a withering look before nodding tersely. "Obviously."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "There's no need to be rude, you know," she said coolly before spinning on her heels abruptly and stalking over to where Neville and Ron were standing.

A few minutes later, Professor McGonagall ushered them through a wide corridor and into an even larger room. In all of her wildest imaginings, she never could have thought of a more wonderful place than this. Instead of electric lights, the room was lit up by the soft glows of tens of thousands of floating candle. Instead of a ceiling, the Great Hall opened up to the sky. From where she was standing, she could see literally hundreds of twinkling stars as well as the moon high in the sky.

"There's no ceiling. How do you think they managed that?" she asked Ron.

He shrugged. "I don't know, but it's brilliant."

Harri quite agreed with him.

There was a delicate snort behind her. "There _is _a ceiling. It's just bewitched to show the sky outside. I read all about it in _Hogwarts, a History._"

Harri's eyes narrowed until they were little more than slits. She opened her mouth to tell Hermione that perhaps she ought to spend a little less time reading and more time practicing on how not to be an insufferable know-it-all when the dusty old hat they'd been led in front of opened its wide-brim and began to sing.

When it had finished, Professor McGonagall peered at the first years over her square-rimmed glasses. "When I call your name, please step forward to be sorted."

Beside her, Ron grumbled. "Fred told me that we had to wrestle a troll, but all we have to do is put on a mangy old hat!"

Harri turned her attention back to the sorting in time for Susan Bones to be sorted into Hufflepuff. She became more nervous as time went on. By the time Draco Malfoy, the awful boy from the robes' shop, was sorted into Slytherin, she was a bundle of nerves. Wouldn't it just be awful if the Hat refused to sort her? She didn't think she could stand going back home now that she'd seen a glimpse of what it was like here.

Finally, it was to be her turn. McGonagall paused before calling out her name, "Potter, Harrietta."

The hall suddenly came to life. Harri ignored the stares and whispers as she made her way to the front. She raised her hand in greeting to the twins who were smiling broadly at her from their place at the Gryffindor Table. When she was perched on the edge of the stool, McGonagall dropped the hat on her head. It easily covered her entire head. From within the dark confines of the hat, Harri heard a soft voice whispering in her head.

"Just put me in Gryffindor already," she said after listening to the Hat debate for several minutes. "_Where dwell the brave at heart_! That's me in one."

"Gryffindor, you say? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on your way to greatness," countered the Hat.

"Anywhere but Slytherin."

"Well, if you're sure, better be -- GRYFFINDOR!"

The hall erupted in thunderous applause. Harri's face was as red as her hair as she made her way over to the Gryffindor Table. Fred and George shoved over to make room for her on the bench.

"Glad that's over!" she said. "It was a near miss there for a while."

George gave her a wide grin. "We never doubted you for a mo', Harri."

"You're a Gryffindor through and through!" Fred chirped. "Not like us. The Hat wanted to put us in Slytherin, but we convinced it not to-- _ow_!" He cried as George cuffed him on the back of the head. He grumbled to himself as he rubbed his head. "What'dya do that for?"

"Pay attention, git. Ron's about to be sorted!"

Harri turned her attention back to the front of the room. Sure enough, Ron was making his way to the Sorting Hat, looking quite ill.

"He's a bit green, don't you think?" she asked the twins.

Fred guffawed. "I'll bet you," he paused and rummaged through his pocket, "five sickles that the Hat puts him in Hufflepuff."

"I'll take that, but if he's put in Gryffindor, you have to serve all of my detentions for the next fortnight."

The twins shook on it just in time to hear the hat shout out, "Gryffindor!"

Finally, with Blaise Zabini -- the rude boy from before -- being sorted into Slytherin, the sorting was over.

The headmaster, the same man she'd seen on her chocolate frog trading card, stood, stretched his arms wide open, and began to speak. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! I would just like to say a few words before we begin: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

He clapped once and all of the previous empty plates that were lined up on the table were now heavy with food.

"Wicked," Harri breathed. "How'd they do that?"

"House elves," George told her around a mouthful of food.

"There are loads of them down in the kitchens," Fred continued. "We'll show them to you one day, if you want."

"What's a house elf?" she asked then.

"You'll see. Most of them are completely nutters, but most of them are alright, I suppose," George said, gesturing wildly with his fork.

By the time the feast was over, Harri was more than pleasantly full. She'd never had such wonderfully tasty things to eat in her entire life. She'd eaten far more than she ought to have, though that was nothing to the amount of food that the twins combined managed to consume. Between the two of them, they'd consumed an entire treacle tart.

Before her eyes, all of the plates and goblets on the table vanished at the same time that Dumbledore stood to give the start of term announcements. Harri listened raptly as the Headmaster spoke of forbidden forests and restricted corridors that could result in a most gruesome death. It all sounded terribly thrilling to her. She could hardly wait to start exploring the castle! Not to mention the forest!

"How many animals live in the forest, do you think?" she asked George as they were filing out of the Great Hall. Fred and Lee were ahead of them discussing Quidditch with another Gryffindor third year, Angelina Johnson.

George shrugged absently. "Loads, I reckon. More than animals live there, though. There's magical creatures, too. And centaurs," he added. "Can't forget the centaurs."

"What sort of creatures? You mean like... dragons and the like?" she pressed.

"Nah," he said. "Can't keep dragons in Britain. It's illegal, you see. No, dragons live on reserves, mostly. My brother Charlie works on one in Romania. But there are all sorts of creatures in the forest. Most of them are harmless, like unicorns and --"

Harri cut him off with a gasp. "Unicorns are _real_?"

"'Course they are," Fred cut in, slinging his arm across his brother's shoulders, "But if it's creatures you're interested in, we'll have to introduce you to Hagrid. He's dead brilliant!"

"First years, follow me!" a red haired boy called. He was surveying the Gryffindors, but he was looking at Harri in particular.

"Best go on, then, Harri. Wouldn't want Percy the Prefect to dock points on your very first night!" George practically crowed.

"We'll wait for you in the Common Room tomorrow before breakfast," Fred called after her as she hurried to join the other first years.

Once Harri was in tow, Percy began to lead them through the crowds and up a massive marble staircase. She observed her new home with wide-eyed wonder as they passed by talking portraits, went behind sliding passageways, and underneath large tapestries took up entire rooms.

No sooner had Percy issued the warning to be wary of the moving staircases did the one they were on move. Harri let out a delighted laugh, but Neville, who was beside her, gripped the railing of the staircase so tightly, his knuckles turned white.

On and on they went through the twisting corridors, stopping only long enough for Percy to threaten a rather ugly little man called Peeves. Finally, they came to a stop at the end of the corridor in front of a portrait of a very large woman in a shockingly pink dress.

Percy gave the password and the portrait swung open to reveal the Gryffindor Common Room. The common room was full of very comfortable looking armchairs, and the entire room was painted a bright red. Once everyone had managed to climb into the common room, Percy led the girls through the door that would lead up to their dormitory.

The girls climbed one last set of stairs before they found themselves in their room. Besides their trunks, which had already been brought up, the room held four wonderfully large beds. They were the biggest beds Harri had ever seen, and each bed was surrounded by deep red, velvet curtains. It was only upon seeing the beds that she even realized just how tired she was.

Fred and George were waiting for her the next morning just as they had promised which was lucky as she didn't think she would have managed to find her way to the Great Hall alone.

"Don't worry," George told her as he scooped mounds of eggs onto his plate.

Fred nodded enthusiastically. "You'll be fine. Besides, we'll help you if you need it."

It turned out that Harri was fine -- mostly. True, she and Neville had gotten horribly lost on their way to their first class, but they had found it. Eventually. Plus, getting lost meant that she got to explore the castle which she thought was brilliant.

Until she and Neville got turned around on the third floor and ended up at the entrance of the restricted corridor, that is. They hadn't even meant to be on the third floor, but when the staircase had moved on their way down to lunch, Harri had taken it as a sign of serendipity. Of course, their claims of being lost hadn't stopped Argus Filch, the caretaker at Hogwarts, from reprimanding them. Nor had it stopped his ratty looking cat from hissing at them. Luckily, Professor Quirrell had turned up and saved them from a most certain death-by-torture.

By the end of her first week at Hogwarts, Harri had discovered something very important about her new roommates: they were absolutely horrid. She thought that Lavender Brown and Pavarti Patil might just be the silliest girls in the entirety of the United Kingdom while she was sure that Hermione Granger had memorized _Hogwarts, a History_. In fact, Harri was quite certain she had memorized all of the books she'd brought with her.

The classes themselves were... different. Learning magic was dead fun, but it was also really difficult. A lot more difficult than she thought it would be. Transfiguration was her most favorite class, but it was followed closely by Charms. She didn't mind Herbology, but she found History of Magic and Astronomy to be rather uninteresting. In fact, she could scarcely keep her eyes open in either class!

Potions was her least favorite class by far mostly due to the fact that Professor Snape had turned out to be a bullying git. He didn't say much to Harri as he seemed perfectly satisfied to ignore her very presence, going so far as to overlook her even when she had a question. No, the person he'd chosen to terrorize was Neville. Poor Neville was absolutely terrified of him. It didn't help that Neville was more than helpless at Potions. Harri had partnered with him during their class, but that hadn't helped much as she hadn't a clue what to do in Potions either. It wasn't too much of a surprise that the two of them together had ended up melting their cauldron. It could have been worse, though. Their cauldron could have actually exploded like Ron and Seamus' had.

Despite their horrid morning, Harri was positively beaming as the Gryffindor first years made their way down to lunch after Potions. For one thing, it was the first time all week that they hadn't gotten lost. For another, it was Friday. The twins had been busy scrambling to finish their summer homework all week long, so there hadn't been much time to take Harri exploring. To make it up to her, they had promised to take her around today. Not only had they promised to take her around, but they had promised to introduce her, properly, that is, to Hagrid, the giant man who'd taken the first years across the lake when they'd arrived at Hogwarts.

After lunch, Harri and the twins had headed across the grounds to the hut where Hagrid lived. She had invited Neville along, but he was much too shaken up from Potions to go. Of course, the twins hadn't helped matters by telling him they would be going into the forest.

The moment the giant answered the door, a large -- very large -- dog had launched itself at Harri, knocking her over and licking her face until the slobber was literally dripping off of it.

"Sorry 'bout that," Hagrid apologized as he pulled the large dog off by its collar. "So, what brings yeh here today, Weasleys? Not been tryin' to sneak into the forest, have yeh?"

Fred widened his eyes as George fluttered his eyelashes, both adopting a look of betrayal. "Would we do that?" Fred asked.

Hagrid grunted. "Yeh know yeh would. I spent half me life chasin' yeh away from the forest."

George let out an affected sniff. "Well, today we have a mission of the utmost importance. It seems young Miss Potter here," he gestured towards Harri, "is interested in hearing more about magical creatures."

"And," said Fred, picking up where George stopped, "we told her you were the resident expert, so to speak."

Hagrid blinked several times before he turned to look at Harri. He sniffed loudly and blew his nose into a dirty handkerchief that he'd pulled from his robe. "Haven't seen yeh since yeh were a baby!" He sniffled several more times before mopping his face with the dirty handkerchief. "How 'bout a spot o' tea?"

The three of them spent the afternoon with Hagrid, drinking tea and pretending to eat rock cakes while he told Harri all about taking care of the magical creatures in the forest.

As they left Hagrid's, Harri eyed the forest with a great deal of interest. "We should try and sneak in," she said. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to see a real live unicorn?"

George and Fred exchanged wary glances. "Tomorrow," Fred promised. "It's never _really _safe to go in there, but it's especially not safe after dark."

"What could be so dangerous about going into the forest at night?" she asked. "Unless you're afraid of the dark..."

"I'm -- _we're_ -- not afraid of the dark, but only someone with a death wish would want to go into the forest when there are vampires and werewolves milling about! It'd be a right shame to die after only one week at Hogwarts, wouldn't it? We haven't even had a chance to show you the secret passages."

"Secret passages?"

The twins nodded eagerly.

"Alright," Harri agreed easily. While she wasn't afraid, she wasn't too keen on actually dying.

True to their words, the twins spent the next day showing her the various secret tunnels in Hogwarts.

"This statue," Fred said, pointing to an ugly statue of a hunch-backed witch, "leads to the cellar of Honeydukes in Hogsmeade."

"What's that?"

"_What's that_, she asks," cackled George. "It's only the best candy shop in Britain. Now that Fred and I are third years, we'll be able to go without having to sneak out."

"Not to mention Zonkos," Fred sighed. "That's a joke shop," he added at her curious look.

After showing her the passageways, the trio had headed outside and across the grounds. They tried several times to gain entry into the forest only to be stopped by Hagrid every time.

"We'll manage it sooner or later," Fred assured her before leaving to serve detention with Filch.

Both of the twins had detention, so Harri spent the first part of Saturday night curled in one of the squashy armchairs rereading one of her all-time favorite books, _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_. She spent the second half of the night learning how to play Exploding Snap with the first year boys.

"All you have to do," the Irish boy, Seamus Finnigan, explained, "is tap the top of the card with the identical picture with your wand."

It sounded much easier than it actually was, but Harri loved it all the same.

The twins and Lee joined the game after their detentions and their. It was so late when the game broke up that her eyelids were so heavy she could scarcely keep them open long enough to climb the stairs to her room.

Time seemed to move on hyper speed now that she was at Hogwarts. In no time at all, it was the day that Harri had most been looking forward to: flying lessons. Nothing, not even having to share the lesson with the Slytherins, could dim her excitement.

Neville, who had become nearly her closest friend – besides the twins, of course – was certain he would make a fool of himself.

"I've hardly any magic," he confessed to her in a hushed tone. "I don't know how I managed to get into Hogwarts at all!"

"That's nonsense!" she declared. "They wouldn't let you in if you only had enough magic to get by. Besides, I've seen you in classes. You'd be quite good if only you weren't so scared of failing all the time. You have to have more confidence, that's all."

Neville looked at her skeptically. "But I do fail a lot of the time. I couldn't even stand up to Malfoy when he took my Remembrall during breakfast. I heard the other boys say it was a wonder I hadn't been put in Hufflepuff with the way I carried on."

"Who said that?" she demanded, her eyes flashing angrily.

"No one," he said quickly. "Don't worry about me, I'm fine."

Harri considered him for a long moment before nodding. "Don't put any merit in what they say – especially if one of them was Ron. Practically afraid of his shadow, he is. I'll have to get the twins to tell you about the time to they changed his teddy-bear into a spider. Now, about flying, the twins told me you mustn't be nervous. The broom will sense if you aren't, and that wouldn't be good at all."

She was very nearly giddy as the Gryffindors headed down towards the clearing for their lessons. She was about to learn how to fly! On an actual broomstick! It was going to be fantastic.

Madam Hooch, the hawk-like woman who taught flying, was waiting for them. She issued her instruction to step up to a broom in a no nonsense tone of voice.

"Remember," Harri whispered to Neville, "don't be nervous."

But she was clearly wasting her breath as Neville was already pale and more than a little twitchy, and he hadn't even attempted to get his broom to move yet.

Harri's broom flew into her hand with such force that she winced. "That smarts," she muttered with a pleased smile on her face. Neville's didn't move at all.

After everyone had managed to get their brooms to respond to their commands, Hooch moved on to how to mount and how to lift off.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, kick off hard. Rise a few feet, just a few, mind you, before coming back down."

She hadn't even begun to count, however, when Neville kicked off far harder than was necessary. Harri watched in horror as he flew more than twenty feet into the air, spinning dangerously as he did.

"Be careful, Neville!" she called. "Remember what I told you!"

That was exactly the wrong thing to say because he paled even further than before and immediately slid off the broom. He fell into a heap on the ground with a sickening _crack_.

Hooch pronounced him to have a broken wrist and led him off to the Infirmary with the instructions for the class to leave their feet planted firmly on the ground or face expulsion.

Harri had every intention on adhering to that rule as she had no desire to be expelled. That all changed when Malfoy had picked up Neville's Remembrall.

"Give it back, Malfoy," she snapped.

"Sticking up for your boyfriend, Potter?" Malfoy said with a nasty smile. "Did you hear that, Blaise? Poor Longbottom is so pathetic that he has to rely on a_ girl _to fight his battles for him."

She brandished her wand at him, then. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Malfoy shrugged carelessly. Seemingly nonplussed, he turned back to his friends. "I think I'll leave this somewhere Longbottom can find it – like in a tree!"

With that, he jumped on his broom and took off. Harri didn't give it a second thought. She ignored Hermione's cries that she would get them all into tremendous trouble and jumped on her broom.

Flying was every bit as fun as she thought it would be. A giggle flew out her lips as the wind whipped through her hair. Flying was as natural as breathing to her.

Malfoy hadn't expected her to follow him, if the expression on his face when he caught sight of her was anything to go on.

"Give it to me," Harri demanded as she turned her broomstick sharply to face him.

A look of shock flitted across his face, but he recovered quickly. "Catch it if you can," Malfoy said and let the ball drop.

Harri didn't hesitate at all. She leaned forward and pointed her broom handle down before diving after the ball. Right before she would have hit the ground, the ball fell into her outstretched hand. She had only _just _enough time to pull her broom straight before toppling to the ground.

The Gryffindors started clapping loudly, but Harri didn't have time to enjoy it because coming towards her, looking angrier than any one person had right to look, was Professor McGonagall. Her lips were set into a tight line as she barked for the crowd to disperse.

"Come with me, now, Miss Potter."


	3. Chapter 3

Alright everyone! Here's the next chapter. I didn't get quite as far as I hoped, but I think you'll enjoy it all the same. I really appreciate all of the feedback I'm getting. I've edited this twice as I keep finding typos. Please let me know if you find something else! Don't forget about the poll located in my profile!

* * *

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

_

* * *

_

Chapter Three  
Of Quidditch and Mythological Beasts

Harri had the sense to at least appear abashed as Professor McGonagall led her back across the grounds and through the corridors of Hogwarts -- even if she didn't feel appropriately contrite as perhaps she ought to. Neville was her friend, and she'd break the rules to help him again, if she had to.

"-- Never in all of my life," McGonagall was saying, "even your father never pulled such a stunt as a first year! Might have broken your fool neck..."

But the curious thing was that she didn't seem to be as cross with Harri now that they were away from the other students and weaving their way through the school. In fact, if anything Harri thought the professor was looking rather pleased now.

They came to an abrupt stop in front of the Charms classroom. McGonagall gave Harri a stern look before opening the door and asking Professor Flitwick if she could borrow Wood.

Oliver Wood, Harri knew, was the Gryffindor Quidditch Team Captain as well as their Keeper. The twins said he was dead talented, but that he was also known to be quite ruthless in regards to Quidditch. It was his first year as Captain, and the twins were rather nervous about his exuberance.

With Wood in tow, they set off for a nearby abandoned classroom.

"I've found you a Seeker," McGonagall said when they'd reached the room.

Wood gave Harri a wary look that turned positively malevolent when he heard of her catching the Rememberall after a fifty-foot dive the very first time she'd set hands on a broomstick.

The twins, upon hearing her news, were delighted. They could talk of nothing else for days. Of course, it hadn't helped that the next morning a package had arrived for her. A long thin package containing a shiny new broomstick -- courtesy of Professor McGonagall.

"A Nimbus 2000," breathed George reverently.

Beside him, Fred wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "Our little Harri's very first broomstick. Oh, I am such a proud Papa!"

George sniffed wetly several times. "How fast they grow! It seems like only yesterday our little girl was toddling about and carrying on with her dollies, and now she's exchanged her dollies for brooms!" he bemoaned.

Harri scowled and ducked to avoid George's hair ruffling. "I'd shut up, if I were you," she warned, "else I might not let you take a ride on it!"

But the twins, who had dissolved into fits of self-indulgent laughter, ignored the warning. They did not, however, ignore the two stinging hexes Harri sent after each of them. Yelping, they had apologized. Harri accepted their apology begrudgingly at first but less so after they promised to show her the new secret passage discovered by Lee.

Unfortunately, the twin's antics had caused a crowd to form around them. – a crowd that included Draco Malfoy and his two large friends.

"What's this?" he breathed. "A broomstick? First years aren't to have broomsticks, Potter. Wait till the Headmaster catches wind of this. You'll be on the train back to London in no time."

"Is there a problem here, Miss Potter, Mr. Malfoy?" Professor McGonagall cut in.

"Potter's got a broomstick," Malfoy told the professor gleefully.

"Indeed she has, Mr. Malfoy. I fail to see, however, how this is any concern of yours." McGonagall gave him a pointed look.

"But Professor, first years aren't allowed them!" he protested. "Shouldn't the Headmaster be made aware?"

"I assure you," the professor began primly, "that the Headmaster is quite aware of the goings on in his school. Now, classes are to begin soon, so I suggest you make yourselves scarce else you'll be late."

Grudgingly, the Slytherins left.

"A bit more discretion would not go amiss in the future, Miss Potter," McGonagall said.

Harri flushed under the professor's disapproving gaze.

"I suggest you carry the broomstick up to your dormitory before you head to class. I happen to know your professor doesn't tolerate tardiness."

As she was the professor in question, Harri knew that to be very true. Professor Snape may favor his house during classes, but Professor McGonagall did no such thing. If anything, she was even stricter on Gryffindors than she was on the other houses!

She paused to gather the broomstick and her other belongings before hurrying up to her dormitory in Gryffindor Tower.

The day after Harri's broom arrived, she had her first proper introduction to Quidditch. It was, in a word, brilliant. She spent the evening flying around as Oliver levitated golf balls for her to catch.

When Oliver finally let her go, after nearly three hours, he was ecstatic. "We'll see who has the last laugh now! There's no way Slytherin will win the Quidditch cup this year. Not with you as our Seeker."

The twins were waiting for them when they returned from the Quidditch Pitch.

"Well?" George asked.

Oliver's bright smile was answer enough. "She's a natural," he said, but then his look turned serious. "That doesn't mean that the rest of us can slack off. Our first match is against Slyherin, and we all know that they play dirty. We'll have to train extra hard if we expect to win."

Fred's groan was echoed by Angelina Johnson, a fellow third-year, along with the other members of the Quidditch team.

True to his word, Oliver trained the Gryffindor Quidditch Team hard. Very hard. Not that Harri was complaining, because she certainly wasn't. Flying was easily the most fun she'd ever had. She could, and nearly did thanks to Oliver's practice schedule, spend her every free moment outside of classes in the air.

Between classes, homework, and Quidditch practices, time seemed to run away from her. There were now only two weeks left until Halloween. The weather had turned rather chilly, and it seemed to rain more often than not nowadays, but today was not such a day. It was a beautiful Saturday morning.

Most of the other students were thrilled. Harri, however, was very unhappy and had been ever since the notice announcing the first Hogsmeade weekend had appeared in the Gryffindor Common Room earlier in the week. By the time Saturday rolled around, she was feeling rather gloomy, and justifiably so. Not only was there to be no Quidditch practice, but the twins had talked of nothing else but Hogsmeade for days. Harri thought that visiting an all-magical village would be such fun. Only, she wouldn't be going as only third years and above were allowed.

All throughout breakfast she pouted and behaved most petulantly. The twins observed her behavior with marked curiosity, exchanging searching looks with one another all the while.

Finally, after breakfast, the older Gryffindors made their way to the Entrance Hall. Angelina, who had become fast friends with Harri during Quidditch practices, and Lee left with promises to meet them at Honeydukes.

Harri followed the twins out of the Great Hall, her expression pensive. It was then that it came to her. There was a secret passageway the lead from Hogwarts to Honeydukes! She may not be able to go there properly, but hadn't the twins gone before they were allowed as well? Even if they hadn't offered to show her the way through the tunnel yet, for which she was most cross with them, there was no reason at all that she couldn't go on her own. Plus, she hadn't been able to explore properly for _ages_. Not since she started Quidditch, at any rate.

It would be a grand adventure filled with danger and peril at every turn.

She grinned broadly despite her previously gloomy state.

"I see Miss Potter has finally realized what we've been trying to hint at all week, George," said Fred with a broad smile of his own.

Harri glowered at the both of them. "Why didn't you just tell me, then, instead of letting me think you were going to leave me behind?"

George ruffled her hair which earned him another glare. "Couldn't make things too easy for you, could we? Plus, wouldn't want it to be known that we had corrupted the Girl-who-Lived. Besides, old McGonagall is on to us, you know."

Fred nodded emphatically. "She came in on the end of us discussing our plans, so we've had to be extra careful."

"You'll have to come on your own, but we'll be waiting for you on other end," George finished before pulling Fred after the other third years.

Smiling, Harri headed back up to the dormitory to collect her money pouch. A few minutes later, Hermione Granger entered their room.

"I couldn't help overhearing you before, and you really mustn't sneak out of the school," the girl began. "Think of all the points you'll loose Gryffindor when you're caught -- and you're bound to be caught!"

"I won't be caught."

"Of course you will be! Even if you manage to get out of the school without being caught, there will be teachers about in Hogsmeade. It's really quite selfish of you."

But Harri ignored her thoroughly. She pushed past her and out of the dormitory. She'd nearly made it to the forbidden third floor corridor which happened to contain the entrance to the passage before a gasping out-of-breath Neville caught up with her. Harri couldn't help but feel guilty. She'd been a rotten friend to Neville since she started Quidditch.

"You can't go," he managed to get out after sucking in several large breaths. "Hermione's told Percy. They know to look for you. If you're seen in Hogsmeade, you'll be in serious trouble."

"Well, then, I'll be careful not to get caught. I shan't be in any trouble, that way," Harri told him reasonably.

Neville opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, a voice, drawing ever closer, caught their attention.

"... In my day, it was the cane for any student foolish enough to break the rules. There was none of this cleaning as a punishment going on, my sweet..."

"It's Filch," they both exclaimed at once.

"Come on, Neville, or we'll be caught!"

They took off running down the corridor.

"We can hide in here," Harri said, stopping at the first door they came to.

But the door wouldn't budge at all. It was locked tight.

"Hurry! I can still hear him," Neville urged from beside her.

Harri chewed on her bottom lip. "What's that spell that we learned in Charms, Neville? The Unlocking Charm. Only I can never remember the incantation," she mumbled to herself. "Something Hawaiian, I think."

The footsteps were coming closer.

"_Aloha_!" she cried and tapped the doorknob with her wand.

Nothing happened.

The footsteps were coming even closer.

Suddenly it came to her. Not Aloha, but, "_Alohomora_!"

With a click, the door swung open. She pulled Neville into the room and slammed the door. They practically fell to the floor as they gasped for much needed breath. She was still trying to recover when she felt Neville tugging urgently on her shirt sleeve. She turned to see what he wanted only to find herself face-to-face with a rather large dog.

A rather large three-headed dog.

A rather large three-headed dog that was currently pulling at the chains that held it in place, snarling all the while.

"Don't move," Harri warned him as he jerked and whimpered beside her.

"D-don't move! How d'you expect me not to move? We've got to get out of here, or that t-thing'll eat us up." Neville's voice was bordering on hysterical now.

"Right," she said with resolve she didn't quite feel. She shook herself a bit. She was supposed to be brave. Some Gryffindor she was turning out to be! "Well, look on the bright side. If it could get loose, it probably already would have, so we're fairly safe. Just open the door and back out of it slowly."

"W-what about Filch?"

"Would you rather take your chances with the dog then?" asked Harri, pointedly. She nodded towards the dog in question who was now gnawing at its chains.

With painful slowness, Neville eased the door open and backed out. When he was out, Harri followed his lead. The last thing she saw before slamming the door shut was the chains holding the beast break.

But it seemed they had found some luck at last because Filch was no where to be seen and they were able to leave the restricted corridor with no one the wiser.

"What _was_ that thing?" Neville asked, collapsing against a wall to catch his breath. "Have you ever heard of a three-headed dog?"

Harri furrowed her brow. "Once, I think, when I was back in primary. We were studying Greek mythology. But that was just a myth. Wasn't it?"

Neville shrugged. "I don't know. Didn't you say that muggles thought unicorns were myths too? Maybe this is like that."

"Maybe," she said, slowly. She had her doubts, but she hadn't known that witches and wizards were real before getting her letter, so… "Maybe not, though"

"Well, what was thing in the myth?"

"A Cerberus. A three-headed monster with a snake for a tail."

Neville was looking rather ill. "Did _that _have a snake for a tail?"

"Could have," she admitted. "I wasn't exactly looking at its tail. I was a bit preoccupied by its _three_ heads, you know."

"Right. Well, why'd you think they'd have a monster like that at Hogwarts?"

"That's the thing, though. They wouldn't. In the myths, the Cereberus guarded the entrance to the underworld," she said.

Neville blanched. "U-underworld? D'you think that the entrance to the underworld is here at Hogwarts?"

"No," she quickly reassured him. "Obviously not, Nev. Maybe it's guarding something else though."

He looked relieved but only slightly. "But _what?_"

Harri shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. While it had been rather frightening to run into a monster with no warning, she was feeling a bit exhilarated at the prospect of discovering exactly why there was a monster was being kept at her school in the first place!

She was so preoccupied with thoughts of the three-headed dog, she'd forgotten entirely about Hermione telling Percy on her – until she and Neville arrived at the Great Hall at lunch only to be interrogated by the prefect. As he couldn't actually prove Harri'd broken any rules -- to be fair, the only rule she had _actually_ broken was wandering on the third floor corridor -- he couldn't rightly dock her points or assign detention. He did give her talking down, but that had been all.

Of course, that was before he heard her mutter of "Percy the Pretentious Prefect". That cost her five house points, but she considered it a win, especially when she remembered the looks of glee on the twins face when she recounted the story to them later.

"Who knew that the Girl-Who-Lived was such a rebel?" George asked.

Fred grinned. "Not I."

They couldn't say more because Harri dragged them out of the common room then.

"What?" they asked.

"_Not here_."

She waited until they were tucked away inside of an abandoned classroom before speaking again.

"I've discovered why the third floor is currently restricted," she announced.

"Oh really?" Fred asked. "Do tell."

"They're keeping a three-headed dog up there!"

"A _three-headed_ dog? Why would there be a three-headed dog in Hogwarts?" George asked with a frown.

"I don't know, but I know who will."

"Hagrid," they all answered in unison.

Harri nodded. "We'll go first thing tomorrow morning and ask him."

"Can't be first thing," Fred pointed out. "Oliver scheduled an early morning practice."

"Alright, after then."

When they turned up the next day, Hagrid seemed quite pleased to see them. So pleased, in fact, that Harri felt a bit guilty for staying away. She would have to spend a little less time playing Quidditch and more time with her friends, she resolved.

"Say, Hagrid, have you ever heard of a three-headed dog?" she asked as she poured herself a second cup of tea.

"Might've done," he grunted. "Yeh three been pokin' around where yeh don' belong?"

"I'd hardly call being nearly eaten 'pokin' around', would you?" asked Harri.

At that, Hagrid blustered. "Fluffy wouldn't harm a fly!"

"_Fluffy_? Who named a three-headed dog Fluffy?" George exclaimed.

"Me. He's mine. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the – " Hagrid fell silent at once.

"The entrance to the underworld?" Harri inquired curiously. "That's what the myths say that the Cereberus guards, isn't it?"

Hagrid snorted. "Underworld, eh? Codswallop, there's no such place. No, what Fluffy's guardin' is strictly between Dumbledore an' Flamel."

"Who's Flamel, then?" asked Fred.

But Hagrid refused to answer anymore questions. He hastily finished his tea and sent the three Gryffindors on their way.

"We'll have to look up Flamel ourselves, then," she told them as they headed back to the castle.

They didn't seem particularly keen on researching, but they did, begrudgingly, agree to help. The three of them headed up to library to start researching. The only problem was that they didn't quite know where to begin. The library was much bigger than Harri was used to, and there wasn't even a card catalogue!

"I think something of this magnitude requires fortification," Fred declared loftily closing his book with a thud. "What do you say we let Miss Potter in on our secret?"

George shrugged. "Why not? We did promise to show her the house elves. What do you say, Harri? Fancy going down to the kitchens?"

"Yes, lets!" Harri said despite the fact that they'd only been looking through the library for ten minutes -- and that was being quite generous.

After stopping by their dormitory to see if Lee wanted anything, the three of them headed downstairs. The twins lead her to a large painting of a bowl of fruit.

"Tickle the pear," Fred told her.

Harri gave him a skeptical look but did as he said. The entire painting giggled loudly before swinging open to reveal -- dozens of odd-looking creatures. They were short and green with large, bulbous eyes and enormous ears. The twins ushered her inside quickly so as to not draw attention from any passing students. The location of the kitchens was supposed to be a secret. The house elves surrounded them at once.

"What can we get young sirs today?" they asked.

Fred and George rattled off their list before turning to Harri.

But Harri was far too busy looking around. The kitchens of Hogwarts were beyond description. They were like something out of one of her favorite films, _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_. There was food covering nearly every available surface. Mouthwatering food that filled her nose with their wonderful scents.

She had to blink several times before she answered the small green creature, who was by now quite anxious and nearly hopping in place as she asked, "Anything for young miss?"

"Treacle Tart," she decided after a moment. Her eyes widened as one appeared in front of her just like in the Great Hall. Magic was wonderful. How had she ever lived without it?

Half-an-hour later, they were unloading their treats onto George's large four-poster bed.

"Good haul," Lee commented, turning down the old-fashioned radio he'd been listening to.

"What's that?" asked Harri around a mouthful of tart. "I didn't think radios worked around magic."

"They don't," Lee agreed. "Muggle ones, that is. This radio here is magical. It's the Wizarding Wireless Network."

"Is it really? And what sort of things can you hear on it?"

Lee shrugged. "Anything I suppose. Music, radio-soap operas and the like. Me? I like to listen to the Quidditch matches. McGonagall said she'll let me do the commentary this year – if I can behave – so I want to get some pointers on how the professionals do it."

"Quidditch matches? Like… professional Quidditch matches?"

"Well, yeah, what other kind are there? Do you guys want to listen along, then? It's Puddlemere United against the Falmouth Falcons today."

Harri nodded excitedly.

"Those Falcons are a right brutal lot," George said as he took another of the sandwiches.

Fred chortled. "With a motto like theirs, I'd say so."

"What's their motto?" she asked curiously.

"Let us win, but if we cannot win, let us break a few heads," said all three of the boys in chorus.

Their motto rang true. By the time the game was half over, they'd fouled nearly half the other team.

Listening to a Quidditch match, as fun as it was – and it certainly was that – made Harri feel a bit nervous. Soon, it would be her in the air. She only hoped she would do half as well as a Seeker as Lee was sure to do as the commentator. He'd practiced all throughout the match, and she'd laughed so hard that pumpkin juice had shot straight out of her nose.

Practicing Quidditch was one thing, but listening to a real match was something entirely different. She bet it would be even better to actually see a match!

"It's too bad wizards don't have telly," she said when it was over. She was full of tart and feeling rather sleepy. "It'd be brilliant to actually be able to watch a match, wouldn't it?"

"What's a telly?" asked George.

Harri yawned loudly. "Muggle thing. I'll explain tomorrow, I'm asleep standing as it is," she yawned again. "Night."

"M'dad's nutters 'bout muggles, y'know?" Fred, who was sprawled across George's bed nearly asleep, slurred.

"Gerroff my bed, you git," George told him. When Fred didn't move, he cuffed him on the back of the head.

"_Ow!_ This is _my_ bed. You gerroff!"

She slipped out of the room as the two began to scuffle.

That night, Harri had the oddest dream about a flying motorbike and a flash of bright green light. When she woke up, the lightening-bolt shaped scar on her forehead was twinging. By the time she arrived at the Great Hall for breakfast, however, her odd dream was long forgotten.

The rest of her day wasn't any better. The teachers were really beginning to pile the work on now that they'd been there for a while. She had essays in both Charms and Herbology to complete, never mind the star chart she had to do for Astronomy.

"I'm never going to finish all of this tonight," she grumbled to Neville that night. She was curled up in a squishy armchair balancing her Herbology text on her lap. She let out a mournful sigh and glanced wistfully at the group of Gryffindors playing Exploding Snap near them.

Neville scrunched up his nose. "But this essay isn't due till the end of the week."

Harri let out another sigh. "I _know_, but this is the only night I have free until Friday, so I have to get this and my Charms essay finished tonight."

"I'll help you," he offered, giving her a rare smile. "Tackling Devil's Snare _is _a bit difficult, but there is a trick to it. Just remember, _cowers from flame and hides from light_ and you can't go wrong."

They were nearly the last two to leave the common room, but when she did finally go up to her dormitory all of her homework was complete. That was a good thing because the next few days were brutal.

When Friday morning rolled around, she was thoroughly exhausted.

"I can't move," she complained during breakfast. "I'm telling you, Oliver's gone round the bend. Howling mad, that one."

Wearing identical grimaces, the twins nodded profusely. "Completely barmy!"

"_Oi_, I can hear you three, you know!" Oliver called from several spaces down.

Luckily, she only had one class to get through today – Potions. She couldn't deal with Professor Snape on her best day and today certainly wasn't her best day by far, especially as she'd left her book satchel in her dormitory and had had to run all the way back to Gryffindor Tower before running all the way back down to the dungeons. She'd only just managed to slide into her seat next to Neville when the professor closed the door with a flick of his wand.

Professor Snape was in a terribly foul mood all morning long only Harri couldn't quite figure out why. While their potion wasn't half as good as Hermione and Dean's, it certainly looked a great deal better than Ron and Seamus'. The consistency was a bit thick, and the color was a tad darker than it ought to be, but other wise it was passable.

Over the last month, she had discovered that Neville was quite good at Potions – when he wasn't anywhere near the Potions professor. He knew nearly everything there was to know about loads of magical plants, including how to prepare them, but Professor Snape made him so nervous that all of that flew out the window.

That hadn't changed, but after melting several cauldrons due to adding ingredients at the wrong time, he wasn't allowed to go near the cauldron. He just took care of the preparation, and Harri took care of the rest. It seemed to work well enough for them.

Or so she thought.

When Professor Snape stopped by their work station to inspect their work, his thin lips curled into a sneer.

"In the future, Miss Potter, it would behoove you to spend more time preparing for class and a little less time on the Quiddich pitch. I'll not tolerate laziness in my class. If it is too much of a struggle for you to make time for your academics, then perhaps the Headmaster should rethink allowing you the special… _privilege… _of participating in certain extracurricular activities_._ That'll be a point from Gryffindor, I should think, for allowing your partner to do all of the work."

"Snape was way out of line," Ron snarled as the Gryffindors headed out of the dungeon.

Neville nodded in agreement. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't think you were making me do all of the work."

Harri, who had been unnaturally quiet since Snape's reproof, shrugged. "He hates me," she said miserably. "I just don't understand. He brought me my Hogwarts letter and took me to Diagon Alley, you know. He seemed so… well, not exactly nice, but…" she let the sentence hang.

"Snape took you to Diagon Alley?" Ron said, his mouth twisting into a grimace. "Rotten luck, mate."

She sighed. "I think I'll send a letter to my Aunt Petunia before I go to the twins' room to listen to the wireless. Maybe she can tell me why he hates me."

The letter she sent to her aunt wasn't long at all. She asked how Dudley was doing at Smeltings and how her aunt's orchids were doing before getting down to business and asking about Snape.

By the time she returned from the owlry, the entire incident was erased from her mind.

Friday night was spent in much the same fashion as the previous Sunday. They raided the kitchens before piling into the third-year boys' dormitory and listening to the Holyhead Harpies soundly beat the Wimbourne Wasps.

George, whose favorite team was the Wimbourne Wasps, was beside himself. "I can't believe they got beat by a bunch of _girls_."

Harri scowled. "What'sthat got to do with anything?"

"Nothing," said George quickly. "Nothing at all."

"I bet that I could out fly you any day," she declared with narrowed eyes and flushed cheeks.

Beside his brother, Fred scoffed. "No offense or anything, Harri, but you've only been flying for a little over a month. Me an' Fred have been flying for _ages_."

"Are you afraid of being beaten by a girl?" she taunted, full of bravado.

Now it was George who scowled. "'Course not!" he protested at once.

Harri stood and was at the door of their dormitory before they could say another word.

"Where are you going?" George asked.

"To get my broom, of course."

George looked like he might protest, but Fred jammed his elbow in his side. "Alright, then," he said instead. "Care to make this interesting?"

She shrugged. "I don't see why not."

George licked his chapped lips. "If _you_ win, I'll do your History of Magic essays for a month, but if _I_ win, you have to let me use your Nimus 2000 for the first game."

She didn't even hesitate. "Fine."

Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were headed down to the Quidditch Pitch.

"Now boys – and _girl_ – I want a clean game," Lee said, grinning widely.

Fred chortled but straightened up at Harri's glower. "Alright, you two, first one to the goal and back wins."

Both Harri and George mounted their brooms.

"On my mark – one, two, GO!" Lee cried out.

Harri kicked off hard. George might have more experience than her, but he was also much heavier. And he was riding a Cleansweep 5.

The wind whipped around her as she flew, her eyes watering at the chill in the air. By the time she reached the goal, she could scarcely feel her hands. They'd been in such a rush to get to the pitch that she hadn't bothered with her scarf or gloves.

She was tempted to turn and see where George was, but she didn't want to risk it, so instead, she lowered herself so that she was nearly horizontal with her broom. They reached the goal at the same time.

Harri turned sharply and headed back towards where Lee and Fred were waiting. They were neck and neck for a while, but then she had a burst of speed.

She touched down only seconds before George did.

Her victory was almost worth the loss of twenty points – five points a piece – and the week worth of detentions that a stern-faced McGonagall gave them. It hadn't, however, been worth Oliver's anger.


	4. Chapter 4

Alright everyone! Here's the next chapter. It's a bit short, but it really just felt right to end it here. The next chapter should be a lot of fun because we'll have her first Quidditch games, fun times with the twins, and Christmas squeeze it all in. Just think of the damage the three of them will be able to inflict once they have the invisibility cloak. I really appreciate all of the feedback I'm getting. Please let me know if you find something else! Don't forget about the poll located in my profile about pairings! To answer one reviewer, however, I will not be doing any cross-gen pairings. Although I do plan on Harri having crushes on both Bill and Charlie at separate points.

* * *

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

_

* * *

_

Chapter Four  
Of Halloween, Know-It-Alls, and Misadventures

The morning of October Thirty-First began, for Harri and the other members of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, the same as it had the two previous days: with an early morning practice.

Harri pulled on her practice robes with blurry eyes, bumping into her trunk as she exited the dormitory. She bent down and rubbed the tender skin on her shin for a moment before yawning widely and continuing down to the common room.

"'S too early," she said around a yawn when she caught sight of the rest of her team.

Oliver sent her a quelling look. "Think about that the next time the three of you decide land yourselves a week worth of detentions," he said pointedly. "Now, come on."

Despite the early hour the moment Harri swung her leg over her broomstick, she was wide awake.

By the time practice was over, she was feeling quite energetic.

"It's Halloween," she crowed as the team made their way back up to the castle. "What sorts of things do wizards do on Halloween?"

"There's a feast tonight in the Great Hall," Fred told her.

Harri frowned. "That's it?"

"Well, yeah," said George. "What else is there?"

"Loads! Fancy dress parties, trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples, carving Jack O'Lanterns," she listed the things off on her fingers. "There aren't any tellies here, so we can't watch any horror films, but what about the rest?"

"Oh, well, we _do _have pumpkins, you know," George said as they parted to get changed into their school things. "Dunno 'bout the others. Must be only Muggles that do those things."

Harri bristled at that. She was very happy that she was a witch, and while she thought that magic was tremendous fun, she didn't think there was anything wrong with the other sort. She'd lived as one for all of her life, hadn't she, and there was nothing wrong with her.

The smell of baking pumpkins that greeted her when they entered the Great Hall for breakfast chased away any lingering unhappiness Harri was feeling. Even if there wouldn't be a fancy dress party or trick or treating, it was still Halloween.

She let out a wistful sigh as she piled eggs onto her plate. "I suppose a feast does sound like fun, but it _is_ too bad that there isn't a fancy dress party. Having one at a castle would be wonderful, wouldn't it?"

Fred looked as if he'd been sucking on lemons. "Who'd ever want to go to a fancy dress party anyway?"

"I'll have you know that fancy dress parties are fun! Aunt Petunia has one every year, and it's always the talk of the neighborhood," she paused, a frown playing on her lips. "Of course, we always have a bit of a row when it comes to my costume, but last year I was able to convince her that I was much too old to be a princess, so I got to go as Little Red Riding Hood instead."

"Muggles have heard of Little Red Riding Hood? I didn't think they believed in werewolves," asked George around a mouthful of kippers.

Harri glared. "Of course we have! Muggles have loads of fairy tales, you know. What's it matter if we believe in werewolves or not?"

It was Fred who shook his head. "But Little Red Riding Hood _isn't_ a fairy tale. It's about a little girl who was eaten by a werewolf. I can't remember her real name, but it was something like Eloise, I think."

"It really happened," George continued at Harri's look of disbelief. "Mum told us all about it. You see, before that there weren't any laws restricting werewolves, but her dad was something like the Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, so he convinced the Minister that werewolves were too dangerous to be allowed to live."

"Not that it was hard to convince him, mind you, werewolves _are _dangerous," Fred finished.

"How many other Muggle fairy tales are based on fact?" wondered Harri.

George shrugged. "Loads, probably."

"There are wizarding fairy tales, though," Fred pointed out. "If you want, I'll write to my mum and see if she can send some of our old books. Ginny's too old for them now, so I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

The arrival of the morning post brought both an end to their conversation as well as her aunt's reply to her letter. The letter itself was rather short though not as short as hers had been.

Dudley was doing very well, thank you very much, as were her orchids although there was one that was looking a bit peaky, but she thought it would likely pull through. As for Harri's questions about Snape, her aunt couldn't – or wouldn't – say much.

By all accounts, Severus Snape and her mother, Lily, had been childhood friends. Aunt Petunia could think of no reason why he wouldn't like Harri though she could think of plenty of reasons why Harri ought not to like _him_. She referred to him throughout the letter as "that horrid Snape boy". She said that he was, when she knew him at least, an awful boy whose mismatched and ill-fitting clothing made him look like a poor beggar boy. She warned Harri to stay as far away from him as she could manage.

But that was all it said, so she was no closer to discovering why her professor seemed to dislike her so than she had been before writing her aunt! Harri sighed as she tucked the letter into her robes, but quickly smiled when she remembered that not only was today Halloween, but it was to be her first time to attempt to make an object fly. Professor Flitwick had announced in their prior lesson that they would begin levitation today.

While Transfiguration remained her favorite subject, she adored Professor Flitwick. He was a genuinely happy man who never ceased to have a smile on his face. This ensured that his classes, while difficult, were always a great deal of fun.

As in all of her classes, Harri partnered with Neville while they worked on levitating their feather.

"Remember," Professor Flitwick said, "swish and flick!"

Beside her, Neville swished and flicked without much luck at all. "I'll never get it to move," he moaned.

"You will, Nev," she assured him. "It's just difficult."

She wasn't lying either, it was quite difficult.

Just then, Professor Flitwick began to clap heartily. "See here, Miss Granger's done it! Excellent work, Miss Granger. Take three points for Gryffindor."

"You see," Harri said, "if Hermione can do it, so can you."

Neville didn't look convinced. "I'm not like her. She's really clever, everyone says so."

Harri snorted. "Of course she is. You would be too if all you ever did was study. You don't have to be an insufferable know-it-all to be clever. Now, watch me, _wingardium leviosa!"_ The feather remained motionless

"Maybe," snapped a tart voice from the next table, "if _you_ spent more time studying and less time loosing Gryffindor points, you'd know you were saying it wrong. You've got to make the _gar_ nice and long."

Harri scowled but quickly turned away from Hermione when she heard Neville excited squeal.

"Look, I've done it! Hermione was right!"

Harri's scowl deepened.

During her last class of the day, History of Magic, Harri had a wonderful idea. She may not be able to celebrate Halloween in her normal fashion, but she bet she could convince the house elves to give her at least _one_ pumpkin that she could carve.

While the other Gryffindor first-years headed back to the tower, she headed down to the kitchens. It took very little to convince the house elves to give her two medium sized pumpkins and two knives. Juggling the pumpkins as best she could, she hurried up to the common room.

The twins were playing Exploding Snap with Neville when she arrived.

"Look what I've got," she said breathlessly as she carefully placed the pumpkins on one of the many tables in the common room.

"Those are pumpkins," said Fred.

"Why've you got pumpkins?" George asked, furrowing his brow. "Have you been down to the kitchen without us? For shame! And you didn't even bring us any sweets! To think that we call you our friend!"

"Oh, honestly," she sighed exasperatedly. "Not everything in the world is about food, you know."

George looked affronted. "Of course not!" he protested. "There's Quidditch, too."

Fred gave her a wicked grin. "Can't forget about Quidditch, now, can we?"

Harri cleared her throat. "_As_ I was saying, I've brought us pumpkins so that we could carve them!"

The twins exchanged a look before shrugging and simply saying, "Why not?"

"So, what do we need to do first?" George asked, eyeing the pumpkins warily.

"First," said Harri in an authoritative tone, "we'll need some newspapers."

"I've got some in my trunk, I think," Neville said. "You can have them if you want."

"Alright, go and get them. The twins can carve one pumpkin, and you and I'll do the other," she decided.

Neville shook his head. "You don't have to – I mean – this is the sort of thing you do with the twins, not with me."

Harri cut him off. "Nev, you're my friend, too, just like the twins. Now, go and get the newspapers, so we can get started."

Ten minutes later, the four of them had commandeered a corner of the common room for the carving of their pumpkins.

"You know," said Fred, "I think we might've done this before when you were younger, only Mum probably used magic."

George made a face as he pulled out a handful of pumpkin innards. "Wish we could use magic."

"Why? Afraid of getting your hands dirty, are you?" she asked archly.

There were no more protests. "What next?"

She pulled out the two knives. "Now, we carve!"

"_What are you four doing_?" said a thunderous Percy, who had just returned from classes.

"Carving pumpkins, what does it look like we're doing?" the twins said.

"We aren't breaking any rules, and we promise to clean up the mess," Harri continued quickly before he could take any points.

"See that you do," sniffed Percy before heading up to his dormitory.

"You really are making quite a mess, you know," Hermione commented, looking up from the book she was reading.

"It's called having fun," Harri muttered underneath her breath, "Not that you would know!" she added as she turned back to her pumpkin.

"Harri!" Neville exclaimed, nudging her with his elbow.

"Well, she wouldn't!" she insisted, lowering her voice. "She told Percy on me when I was going to sneak to Hogsmeade, and I bet that she's the one who told McGonagall about us sneaking out to the Quidditch Pitch on Friday. She's a horrid little snitch. It's no wonder she hasn't got any friends!"

A moment later, the door to the common room slammed shut.

Neville chewed on his bottom lip nervously when he noticed it was Hermione who'd gone. "I think she heard you."

But Harri just shrugged. "Well, it's true," she told him and continued carving her pumpkin.

Neville looked rather unhappy about the entire affair, but continued to help carve the pumpkin with a little prodding.

Any guilt Harri may have felt over Hermione's continued absence was shoved out of her mind when she entered the Great Hall to find a thousand live bats flying overhead. Not only were there bats, but it seemed wizards did carve pumpkins because there were about a dozen scattered about on all four of the house tables. They were much more elaborate than the ones they had carved, but she supposed that using magic was much more efficient than doing it by hand.

"I wonder where Hermione is. She's going to miss the feast," Neville said. The food had just appeared on the empty platters before them, and there was still no sign of the girl.

"Don't worry about her, Nev. She's probably off with her nose in a book."

"Actually," interjected Lavender Brown, "she's holed herself up in the girls' bathroom."

"We tried to convince her to come, but she said she wanted to be left alone," Pavarti Patil finished.

Neville frowned, but before anything further could be said, the door to the Great Hall banged open.

Professor Quirrell, who taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, sprinted down the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. He didn't stop until he reached the Head table.

"Troll – in the dungeons!" he gasped out. "Thought you ought to know."

Chaos erupted in the hall. Harri, for her part, wasn't frightened at all.

"A troll!" she exclaimed to the twins. "I've never seen a troll before."

"Neither have we," they told her.

Dumbledore sent sparks out of his wand. "Prefects," he called, "please lead your houses back to your dormitory."

She pursed her lips as Percy began gathering up the first-year Gryffindors. She waited until he started to walk and then hurried back over to twins.

"We should go to the dungeons," she said, barely containing the joy she felt at merely the prospect of seeing a troll.

"That's where the troll is," George pointed out.

"Exactly. I've never seen a troll before," she said again. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were able to find it?"

George looked skeptical. "Maybe."

Fred, however, looked quite interested. "Alright," he said, "let's go!"

They turned to go, but before they could, Neville grabbed a hold of Harri's robe. "You can't go to the dungeon! We have to find Hermione. She doesn't know about the troll. She could be hurt!"

"You heard the Professor, Nev. The troll's in the dungeon. I'm sure that Hermione is perfectly safe," Harri said, attempting to reassure her friend.

She was surprised by the angry look on Neville's face then. "Well, if you won't come with me, I'll just go find her alone."

He stormed off before she could protest.

"Come on, if we're going to the dungeons, it's got to be now!" hissed George from beside her.

Harri frowned, but stopped when she saw Ron following behind Neville. They would be fine. Besides, the troll was in the dungeons, she thought logically, they weren't in any danger.

It turned out that she was very wrong. After searching the dungeons thoroughly, it became apparent that there wasn't any troll to be found. Finally, at the twins' prodding, they headed back to the common room only to find Neville, Hermione, and Ron regaling the room with stories of their defeat of the troll.


	5. Chapter 5

Alright everyone! Here's the next chapter. I really appreciate all of the feedback I'm getting. Please let me know if you find any mistakes or if you have any suggestions. Thanks for reading, and have a lovely holiday!

* * *

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

_

* * *

_

Chapter Five  
Of Quidditch and Gryffindor Pride

Harri spent the week following Halloween in a whirlwind of classes, detention, and Quidditch practices. By the time Saturday, the day of their first Quidditch match against Slytherin, came around, her nerves were spent.

"I think I've gone mad," she told George as they headed down to breakfast. "Last night I had a dream that a snitch, a snitch that looked remarkably like Oliver, by the way, was chasing _me _around!"

"It's just nerves. You'll be fine," he reassured her.

"Plus," said Fred, "it's bludgers you've got to worry about chasing you, not snitches."

"_And_," George continued loftily, "as we are the beaters, you don't need to worry about them at all!"

It was clear that this was supposed to reassure her, but it had nearly the opposite effect. Bludgers were a nasty business, but she supposed the twins were quite good at deflecting them, during practice that is.

Despite her nerves, Harri felt ravenous. She scooped piles of sausages and eggs on her plate before dousing the whole thing in ketchup.

"What?" she asked at Neville's incredulous look.

"Hungry, are you?" he asked, hiding a smile behind his goblet of pumpkin juice.

She shrugged. "Well, Oliver said that Quidditch matches could go on for days. Got to keep up my strength, don't I?

"Too true," said George. His own plate was filled to the brim.

When breakfast ended, Harri said goodbye to Neville and headed to the Gryffindor locker room with the twins.

"I'll see you there," Neville promised, "Ron and Hermione are coming too."

Harri fought back a grimace. Ever since Halloween, Neville, Hermione, and Ron were inseparable. You could hardly see one without seeing the others. This put Harri in an awkward position as she still rather disliked Hermione. She'd tried to be friendly, for Neville's sake at least, but it was touch and go at times. Especially as Hermione didn't much care for rule-breaking, and Harri didn't much care for rule-abiding.

Once inside the locker room, Oliver launched into what was supposed to be a motivational speech. Harri decided that the speech was quite like one she'd heard a villain make once in an old black-and-white film about world domination.

"You're looking a bit green, Potter," Fred commented as they made their way onto the fields.

"Afraid, are you?" piped in George. "Pluck up some of that Gryffindor courage that I know you have hidden away."

"_I'm not afraid!_" she hissed.

"Sure you aren't," George said with a snicker. "It's not like you have any reason to be afraid."

"You play good enough – for a girl anyway. I'm sure you'll be fine," Fred finished with a wide grinned.

Harri's eyes narrowed, but Madam Hooch blew her whistle, so she could offer no retort.

The moment she was in the air, however, all of her nervousness went away. It felt natural for her to be in the air although she wasn't used to having so many other players with her.

High above the other players, Harri looped around the pitch several times in search of any sign of the snitch but found nothing. Oliver had warned her to stay far away from the other players lest she be injured before she caught the snitch.

Everything was going according to plan. Until, that is, Harri saw a flash of gold below. The snitch. Or what she thought was the snitch. It turned out to be George's wristwatch.

Unfortunately, diving for the snitch-turned-wristwatch had placed her in a rather precarious position: right in the throes of the game. Straight away, she was nearly knocked off her broom by a square-faced boy. She managed to recover rather quickly only to have one of the Slytherin beaters send a bludger her way.

She dodged it but only just. She attempted to rise above the game once more. She'd never find the snitch if she had to keep on dodging bludgers. She was near the Gryffindors' goal-post when her broom began behaving oddly. She thought the first time it tried to buck her off must have been a fluke. The second time, however, she'd known something was wrong with it.

It was nearly impossible to hex a broom, but she figured if anyone could do it, it would be the Slytherins. Fred had warned her they would play dirty. She supposed she should have believed him.

"All right there, Harry?" Oliver asked her when her broom gave a rather powerful lurch.

"Something's wrong with my broom! I think one of the Slytherins hexed it!" she yelled into the wind.

Oliver's look darkened, and he made a motion to Madam Hooch while Harri fought to stay on her broomstick.

Madam Hooch frowned but blew her whistle once to signal a time-out before flying over to where Oliver and Harri were hovering.

Before she could get to them, however, Harri's broom stopped bucking. She moved it back and forth a bit waiting for it to start bucking again. Oliver eyed her worriedly but Harri just shrugged. "I'm fine," she told him. "Must have been a fluke."

"Are you sure?" he asked. She nodded and Oliver motioned for Madam Hooch to resume the game.

It was only minutes after the game restarted that her broom started to buck once more. She was far above the other players looking for the snitch. She gripped the broomstick hard with her knees trying desperately to stay on when it suddenly began to plummet to the ground. While she plummeted, a flash of gold flitted in front of her face. Harri made to grab the snitch, but it zipped just out of her reach. Not to be deterred, she leaned precariously over the edge of the plummeting broom, stretching her arms as far as she could. She closed her fingers around the fluttering snitch at the same time that her broom bucked to the side knocking her completely off her broomstick in the process.

The thundering cheer from the Gryffindor crowd was the last thing she heard before she crashed into the ground.

When Harri came back to consciousness she was in a very bright, very white room. There were beds lining the walls, and the room had the distinct appearance of a rather old-fashioned hospital.

A woman, who just so happened to be dressed to play the part of an old-fashioned nursemaid, bustled into the room muttering beneath her breath. Harri didn't catch most of it, but she thought she distinctly heard the word "Quidditch".

"Ah, Miss Potter, how are we feeling?" the woman asked in a no-nonsense tone.

Harri blinked several times in an attempt to clear her aching head. "M' head hurts," she mumbled as she pulled herself into an upright position. The searing pain laced through her leg stopped her immediately.

The nurse tutted disapprovingly. "Don't try to move that leg of yours. It's broken. I've given you a potion to heal it along with your wrist, but I'm afraid that you will be spending the night here in my care. This potion should help with the pain," she told her, pressing a potions vial into her hands.

Harri made a horrified face as she swallowed the entire potion in one go. _Yuck!_ She felt her head clear at once. "The match!" she cried. "Did Gryffindor win the match? I caught the snitch, didn't I?"

At the mention of Quidditch, the nurse made another disapproving noise. "I believe you did catch the snitch – before falling off your broom. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?"

Harri's furrowed her brow and shook her head slowly, "I didn't fall off my broom. There was something wrong with it. It knocked me off," she said.

But the nurse didn't appear to be listening. "Now, then, you have several visitors waiting to see you. I'll send them along shortly, but do be careful not to overexcite yourself."

The twins were the first to come in.

"How do you feel?" George asked.

"Never mind about _that_," Harri said with a wave of her hands. "We won, didn't we? The nurse said we did, but she didn't seem too sure."

Fred and George exchanged broad smiles.

"'Course we did," Fred grinned. "Oliver was beside himself. I expect he'll be proposing to you within the day!"

Harri sighed. "That's alright then," she said before scowling. "Did they find out which one of the Slytheirns hexed my broom?"

The twins shook their heads. "Both Madam Hooch and the Headmaster checked your broom for curses, but they couldn't find anything wrong with it," Fred said

"Then," George continued, "they had Professor Dumbledore check the wands of the Slytherin team – "

Fred cut him off. "Ol' Snape was none too happy about it either! He said there was no proof of any foul play and that perhaps it was your own inadequacies that caused you to fall."

"And?" asked Harri. "What did they find?"

"Nothing," they said together.

"But something _did_ happen," she protested. "There was something wrong with my broom!"

"That's what Oliver told them, but Professor Dumbledore checked their wands himself, and he didn't find anything."

"Maybe I was imagining it," she said dubiously, chewing on her bottom lip.

"No way!" Fred exclaimed at once. "We all saw how your broom was acting. Something was definitely wrong with it."

"But if it wasn't cursed then what do you think happened?" she asked.

They both just shrugged. "No clue, mate. If someone did curse your broom, then I doubt it was a student. Only a really powerful curse would affect it like that," George said.

Fred nodded. "Brooms have loads of protection charms on them."

"So, you think it might've been a teacher?" Harri asked with a frown.

"No."

"Yes."

Harri heaved a sigh. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter now. It isn't likely to happen again, is it? The nurse – "

"Madam Pomphrey," George supplied helpfully.

"—Madam Pomphrey healed me up, and we won, so that's all that matters. The only bad thing is that I'm trapped here for the night."

The twins flashed her identical grins.

"That reminds me! Lee sent his regards – and his collection of _Quidditch Monthly_," Fred said. He picked up his fallen satchel and pulled out a rather large stack of magazines. "We best be off now. Victory party and all that rot. It's bound to be legendary. Gryffindor hasn't beaten Slytherin since my brother Charlie left school, you know."

The Gryffindors were still celebrating the next day when she returned to the dormitory.

While Harri wasn't really convinced that one of the Slytherins hadn't hexed her broomstick, she was perfectly willing to forget about the entire situation. Not exactly forget, but there was no sense in worrying over it when they were other things to worry about. Like the fact that Madam Pomphrey hadn't let her leave the Hospital Wing until she'd extracted a promise from her: no flying for one week.

It might as well have been a hundred.

Unfortunately, other people, namely Neville, Hermione, and Ron, weren't content to forget the situation at all.

"It was Snape," Neville insisted. The three of them had cornered her in the common room. "Hermione saw him."

The witch nodded. "He was muttering a jinx under his breath. I managed to stop him once – "

"She set his robes on fire! It was brilliant," interjected Ron with a wide grin. "I still dream about it at night…"

Hermione flushed a faint pink. "Only the hem of his robes, but it didn't stop him for long, did it?"

Harri sighed and closed the book she'd been reading. She'd taken _Quidditch Through the Ages_ out from the library the previous day. "Snape might not like me, but I don't really think he try to hurt me on purpose, do you? He's a teacher after all. Plus, my Aunt Petunia told me he was friends with my mum."

"But we all saw him muttering something underneath his breath!" Neville said.

"He's a teacher," Harri said, primly. "Teachers don't usually go about hurting their students. At least none of the teachers at my primary school did, and I doubt they do here. I reckon the Headmaster wouldn't stand for that sort of thing. He's famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald, you know. Anyone would be a fool to try something with him around, wouldn't they?"

None of them had had anything to say about that.

Monday started what was sure to be the longest week of her short life. Seven entire days with no flying! How was she ever going to manage that! She'd tried to convince Oliver to let her fly anyway, but he wouldn't budge. Although he still expected her to attend practices, she wasn't to even touch her broomstick.

So suffice it to say that it was a rather grumpy Harri who had arrived in the Great Hall for breakfast that morning. It didn't help her mood that the Slytherins, Malfoy especially, had been pretending to fall off all over themselves all throughout breakfast.

The twins had been none too pleased about that.

"We'll get them back," George promised.

Fred's look was one of sheer deviousness. "I think I've got the perfect thing."

A sly grin spread across her face. "Do tell."

But the twins shook their heads. "Sorry, Miss Potter, but a gentleman never reveals his secrets."

Harri snorted. "I don't see any gentlemen around her, do you, Lee?"

Lee chortled. "Nah, just a couple of scoundrels."

"Hey now," George said in mock outrage. "I'll have you know that I am the very vision of a gentleman!"

Fred sniffed affectedly. "Come along, George. I can tell when we're not wanted."

The twins left the Gryffindor Table with a flourish.

Harri exchanged a look with Lee.

"Nutters, the both of them," Lee sighed.

Harri nodded in agreement. "What do you think they're going to do with the Slytherins?"

Lee shrugged. "Dunno, but I reckon we'll find out soon enough. It's better to not know, really. Trust me on that."

When the twins didn't show up for lunch, Harri was suspicious. They didn't make a habit of missing meal, but then again, she reasoned, just because they hadn't come to the Great Hall didn't mean that they hadn't eaten. The house elves in the kitchens were quite fond of them after all.

She became even more suspicious when they turned up to dinner looking faintly singed and far too pleased with themselves than they had any right to. However, when several first year Slytherins – namely Malfoy and Zabini – were absent from both lunch and then dinner, Harri knew that whatever the twins had done – and they still wouldn't tell her a thing, the smug gits! – was truly monumental.

"I shan't tell a soul," she promised later that evening in their dormitory – their spotlessly clean dormitory.

Fred made a production of inspecting his nails. "Tell what?" he asked.

"Whatever it is you've done to Malfoy and Zabini!" she said. "I won't tell. Just…tell me, won't you?"

"There's nothing to tell," George said, shrugging.

Harri wanted to press the matter further, but then the Quidditch match started, so she dropped it. It was Puddlemere against the Chudley Cannons today, and she'd been waiting for the match with a great deal of excitement. She rather liked Puddlemore, and she'd never heard the Chudley Cannons play before.

From what she'd gathered from reading Lee's _Quidditch Monthly_, the Cannons were dead awful. They were more than dead awful, really, as they'd finished last in the league for going on a dozen years. The twins, however, were gung-ho Cannonites – as they were called – and were currently dressed head-to-toe in orange from their nearly fluorescent orange socks to their flaming hair.

Half an hour into the match, Harri could see why they were last in the league. One of their beaters had nearly knocked their own seeker off with a bludger! After another half-hour, Puddlemere's Seeker caught the snitch ending the match. The final score had been 225 to 10.

"One day," George vowed, "the Cannons with triumph once more."

Harri scoffed. "Only if they chuck their entire team! They're all rubbish. Puddlemere is much better."

"You only like them," Fred told her hotly, "because you fancy Merdock Hiagle!"

Merdock Hiagle was the Seeker for Puddlemere United, and she most certainly did not fancy him.

"I do _not_," she snarled. "You're just sore 'cause Gudgeon flew right past the snitch!"

"Yeah, well, he wouldn't have but that pretty boy Hiagle was blocking his view with his obscenely large head!"

Lee and George observed the two with amused expressions on their face. "Alright, break it up," Lee chortled. "Wouldn't want any bloodshed on my pristine floor!"

George cleared his throat. "How about a game of Exploding Snap?"

Fred had looked most cross with the lot of them until he'd beaten Harri quite thoroughly. Only then did his usual smile return to his face.

The next morning at breakfast Harri discovered what exactly the twins had been up to. Malfoy and Zabini had entered the Great Hall sporting red and gold hair.

"How did you – " she started to ask but Fred cut her off.

"Ask us no questions, hear no lies!" he sang.

George wouldn't budge either. He only repeated his earlier epitaph. "A gentleman never reveals his secrets."

Not even to their Head of House, it seemed. Even a week in detention hadn't loosened their tongues – a week in which both Slytherins showed their Gryffindor pride.


	6. Chapter 6

Alright everyone! Here's the next chapter. I struggled with it a bit, but I hope you guys enjoy it! Next chapter will be Christmastime at Hogwarts -- complete with Harri receiving the Invisibility Cloak! It'll be interesting to see what sort of trouble she can get into once she has that! Thanks for all of the reviews. Be sure to vote in the poll if you haven't already! Have a great week!

* * *

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

_

* * *

_

Chapter Six  
Of Toilet Seats and Impending Doom

As November went on, things around Hogwarts became exceedingly boring. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had commandeered the Pitch for Quidditch practice almost daily in preparation for their upcoming match at the end of the month. This left the Gryffindors with very little time to practice. As a consequence, Harri was left with far too much free time on her hands.

Aunt Petunia had once said that idle hands were the devil's playthings –Harri's hands especially as she took great delight into getting into all sorts of mischief. It was for that very reason that Aunt Petunia went to some lengths to ensure that Harri was always occupied during school holidays. Sleep away camps, play dates, music lessons, dance lessons, and whatever else she could think of to ensure Harri had as little time as possible in which to make trouble with.

But now… Now Harri was in a magical castle just filled to the brim with all sorts of mischief making devices. And two, three if you counted Lee, friends who were perfectly willing to help her in mischief making however they could.

The only problem was that the twins were currently serving detention with Mr. Filch which left her all on her lonesome. Not only was she all on her lonesome, but the weather had turned dreadfully cold, so cold that she couldn't even bring herself to go and take tea with Hagrid even though she generally went every Saturday morning. Instead, she found herself sitting in the common room with Neville, Ron, and Hermione staring longingly out of the window holding an unread book, _The Hobbit_, in her hand as she listened to Hermione lecture Ron on the importance of completing his homework.

She let out a long-suffering sigh. "Is it almost time for lunch?" she asked Neville hopefully.

He shook his head. "It's only half-past ten."

"I think I'll just nip out for a bit of a walk. I'm going mad sitting around here doing nothing. See you, Nev."

Neville bid her farewell as Ron cast an envious look in her direction.

"—Ronald! Are you listening to me?" snapped Hermione. "I'm not going to do it for you, and if you aren't going to pay attention, then I will go back to doing my own –"

For the next hour, Harri wandered through the twisting corridors of the castle. She could explore the castle for hours upon hours every day and never discover all of its secrets. She liked to walk through the corridors of the castle – the very same corridors that her parents once walked through.

She was passing by a girls' bathroom that she'd never seen before when she heard a curious noise. It was a pitiful wail. She continued walking, but when she heard the wail again, she couldn't help but investigate.

It was a very odd sort of bathroom. The stall doors were wooden and falling apart. Like everywhere else in Hogwarts, the room was lit with candles, but unlike everywhere else there were no chandeliers only several ancient looking holders.

There were scarcely enough candles to light the room properly, but Harri could see a fair bit. Enough to know that there didn't seem to be anyone actually _in_ the room, at least that she could see at any rate. She walked along the stalls, opening each one and checking inside.

Each stall was empty – each one except for the last. When Harri opened the last stall, she found herself face-to-face with a girl wearing an old-fashioned Hogwarts' uniform.

A translucent girl.

A _ghost_.

She blinked several times in surprise. She'd been at the castle for months now, but she wasn't sure she would ever get used to seeing ghosts. "What're you doing here?" she asked the ghost curiously.

"What am _I_ doing _here_?" the ghost screeched loudly. She took a nose dive into the toilet behind her, splashing water everywhere, and soaking Harri thoroughly.

Surprised, Harri stumbled backward just in time to duck out of the enraged ghost's path.

"This is my toilet!" the ghost shrieked.

"This can't be your toilet. You're dead, aren't you?" she said reasonably. "I've just as much right as you do to be here. More, really, because I'm actually alive."

The ghost's chin began to tremble. Harri nearly felt sorry for her when she dissolved into great hiccuping sobs. Until, that is, the girl began to hurl things at her.

Harri ducked to the side, narrowly missing the piece of wood that went sailing past her. She managed to retreat from the bathroom just in time to see water flowing freely from every single one of the toilets. She fell back against the wall across from the toilet panting. She narrowed her eyes at the door she'd just come through. What a horrid little ghost!

The twins had once talked about blowing up one of the toilets and sending the seat to their little sister, Ginny. They'd given up because they thought it might be too noticeable if it were a boys' toilet that was blown up, but a haunted toilet on the other hand.

A haunted _girls_' toilet…

It was the perfect place in which to do their nefarious deed.

"You're beginning to look a bit frayed around the edges," George commented taking in Harri's still wet and harried form. She hadn't bothered to stop by the dormitory and change, instead heading straight to the Great Hall from the haunted toilet.

Harri shrugged. "I got into a bit of a spat… with a ghost."

Fred looked up from his plate at that. "Peeves, was it? Nasty little bugger, isn't he?"

She leaned closer and dropped her voice. "Not Peeves. It was a girl – she haunts a toilet on the second floor."

"Moaning Myrtle," Fred told her. "That's her name."

George sighed. "Ah, Moaning Myrtle… brings back fond memories, that name does."

"Yes, fond memories," agreed Fred heartily. "From back when we were young and innocent."

"Ickly firsties, we were. So young and so impressionable…"

Harri snorted. "You two – innocent? I doubt that." She turned to Lee. "When have they ever been innocent?"

Lee chortled. "Never, to hear their mum tell it. They give her a real run for her money, you know."

Fred was about to launch into his defense when Harri cut him off. "So – about Moaning Myrtle's toilet. It seems abandoned, wouldn't you say?"

"Well," hummed George. "No one ever goes in there anymore, so I reckon, yeah, it's been abandoned."

"What about it?" Fred asked, eyeing her with a great deal of interest.

"It seems a shame, doesn't it, for a ghost – who doesn't even need to use one toilet let alone five – to keep all of them to herself. I rather think she could part with one of them, don't you?"

Lee's brow furrowed. "And what would we do with a toilet seat?"

"Oh, my young, innocent friend," Fred began, "there are a great many things we could do with a toilet seat."

Lee considered this for a moment before shrugging. "Alright, then," he replied easily. "So, a toilet seat. How do we go about getting it?"

"Fillibuster's," the twins said in chorus.

"What's that?" asked Harri, curiously.

"You'll see," George said.

Fred just grinned.

After lunch, they dragged Harri up to their dormitory and pulled out a package from Fred's trunk.

It turned out that Fillibuster's were magical fireworks that used water instead of heat to start them. Harri rather thought they were marvelous.

"So," explained Fred, "all you have to do is drop it in and back away!"

Harri gave him a skeptical look. "Are you sure?"

"Would we lie to you?"

"Well," she answered slowly, "maybe not lie, but you might try to trick me."

Fred heaved a long suffering sigh. "Alright, brother of mine, I think it is time to reveal to our dear Miss Potter the secret of our success."

"I do believe you are right," said George with a positively wicked smile.

"Now, then," Fred turned to Harri, pulling a piece of parchment out from his robe pocket. "When we were but little children, so new to the business of trouble making, we made a most fortuitous discovery." He ignored Harri's snort and tapped the parchment with his wand, saying "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Before her very eyes, ink appeared on the once empty parchment. It took a moment but when all was said and done, she found herself holding a very detailed map of Hogwarts, so detailed, in fact, that Harri was surprised to see that it showed each and every person inside the castle!

She looked up from the parchment with wide eyes. "Is this _real_?"

George grinned. "As real as anything else is, I reckon."

Harri studied the map for a minute. "So, that's really Professor Snape heading to the library?" She pointed to a black dot labeled _S. Snape_.

The twins nodded.

"It's brilliant," she breathed, touching the paper reverently.

"It is," agreed Fred. "Best thing I've ever filched from Filch's office."

"Here is Myrtle's toilet," George told her, pointing to a faded dot that read simply _Myrtle_. "She spends a good deal of time there, but she can go other places, too."

At that, Fred flushed a bright red. Harri observed this with a great deal of curiosity. Why had he blushed?

"—So all we have to do is lure her away from the toilet and then Harri'll be free to go and get our toilet seat!"

"How will you do that?" Harri asked.

George chortled and nudged Fred in the side with his elbow. "Myrtle is a bit of a peeper, you see, and she fancies Fred. She got herself an eyeful at the end of last term. But don't you worry about that. You just make sure that you get our toilet seat without getting caught."

Harri nodded. "When should we do it?"

"On Saturday during the Quidditch match. Everyone else'll be out watching the match, so if we're careful, we'll be able to get it and go down to the match without anyone even noticing that we've gone!" Fred said. The tips of his ears were still bright red though the rest of his face had gone back to normal.

Harri chewed on her lower lip. This entire thing had been _her_ idea, but she didn't really want to miss any of the Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff match. But Fred was right. Saturday would really be the best time to do it.

"Saturday, then," she said.

They spent the rest of the day going over and over their strategy. By the time the next weekend came around, Harri was a bundle of energy.

"You're awfully cheerful today," Neville commented at breakfast on Friday.

"Of course I am! It's Friday," she crowed. "We only have the one class, and then we're free for the rest of the weekend!"

Across from Neville, Ron scowled. "Well, yeah, but it's Potions," he said as if that explained everything.

Harri just shrugged.

Their Potions class was actually almost tolerable. After the Quidditch match, Professor Snape had returned to acting as if she didn't exist. This didn't bother her in the slightest as it was much easier for her – and Neville – to complete their assignments without him looming over them.

After lunch, Neville, Ron, and Hermione headed to the library. Neville asked her to go with them, but she'd already made plans to go see Hagrid, so instead she went up to her dormitory to change clothes before heading down to his hut.

"'ello Harri," the half-giant said, beaming at her. "Alone today, are yeh?"

She nodded, accepting the tea and rock cake Hagrid offered her. "The twins have detention this afternoon."

Hagrid shook his head and laughed heartily. "Ne'er a dull mo' when those two are 'round. Keep meh on mah toes, they do. Much like your da' and his friends used to."

Harri froze. "You knew my dad?"

She didn't think that Aunt Petunia much cared for her dad because she never mentioned him. The only thing she knew about her father was his name, James, and the fact that he was once a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"'Course I did!"

"Will you tell me about him?" she asked.

Hagrid paused, his large hand hovering over the tea kettle. "He was a brave man, your da'. A real grea' man."

Harri suppressed a sigh. That wasn't the sort of things she had in mind, and she told Hagrid so. She wanted to know what he looked like, when his birthday was – those sorts of things.

"Blimey, Harri, don't yeh know?'

She shook her head. "I don't think my aunt thought much of him. She never told me anything about him. I've never even seen a picture of him."

Hagrid's wide eyes glistened with tears. "Your da' was a real trouble maker. Spent more time in detention than out o' it…"

Hagrid then proceeded to spend the afternoon telling her all of the trouble her dad used to get into when he was in school. He became rather tight-lipped when Harri asked about her dad's friends, but she considered the afternoon a great success.

Harri's excitement the next morning was not just about the blowing up the toilet – though she was quite excited about that – it was just also watching the Quidditch match. She'd never seen a match before. Playing in one and listening to them were completely different things.

The twins had disappeared directly after breakfast, leaving Harri to deal with several very curious friends – namely Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

"You three are up to something," Hermione surmised, narrowing her eyes at Harri.

"We aren't up to anything," she protested at once. "And even if we were, it's none of your business!"

"It is if it'll cause you to loose Gryffindor points!" retorted the bushy-haired girl.

"Well, we aren't up to anything. I've got to go meet the twins. See you at the match, Nev." She left before Hermione could protest further.

Dunking into the first empty class room she came to, she pulled out the map. It took her a couple of minutes, but finally she found the twins' dots. They were inside a room on the fifth floor. Not just any room, however, but the prefects' bathroom. Once she'd located the twins, she looked for Myrtle. Unfortunately, Myrtle hadn't moved from her bathroom. Harri sighed and sat on a nearby bench. Who knew how long it would be before Myrtle moved?

It turned out not long at all. Within ten minutes of arriving in the abandoned classroom, the dot labeled Myrtle was heading up to the fifth floor. She'd taken the bait!

Harri shoved the map back into her pocket and hurried off to the second floor. Just as the twins' predicted, the corridors were nearly completely empty. She managed to make it to the bathroom without seeing another soul. Once safely inside, she took out the map again.

Most of the professors were outside on the pitch, with the exception of Professor McGonagall who was near Gryffindor Tower and Professor Quirrell who was near the forbidden third floor corridor. That was certainly odd. Harri wondered why he, of all people, would go near the three-headed dog! He was frightened of nearly everything! Especially of the dark creatures they talked about in their Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. He'd not likely seek out one, voluntarily -- would he? Well, she certainly couldn't think about that now. She had a job to do! She would have to think on this later.

She took a deep breath. This would be easy! All she had to do was throw the firework into the toilet and back up, so she didn't get herself blown up along with the toilet.

Harri pulled the fireworks out of her satchel. She'd been carrying them around all week long, and she could hardly wait to use them. Checking the map once more told her that not only was the cost clear of any professors, but Myrtle was now in the prefects' bathroom with the twins. Not wanting to miss anymore of the match than absolutely necessary, she chose a stall and entered it, leaving the door open behind her. She unwrapped the fireworks and dropped them in the toilet.

The twins had told her – several times, in fact – that she would have about twenty seconds to get away from the toilet. Twenty seconds turned out to be a generous estimation. She'd only just closed the bathroom door when she heard a loud, rumbling explosion within. She waited for about half-a-minute, but no one came.

Harri hurried into the bathroom to collect her spoil. The bathroom had been in poor condition before, but now… well, now the stall door was missing off the toilet she'd blown up and a steady spray of water was coming from where the toilet had once been. It took her a minute to sift through the damage, but finally she found the toilet seat.

"_Yes!_" she exclaimed happily, tucking the toilet seat away in her satchel.

She checked the map once more before leaving. The twins were still with Myrtle in the prefects' bathroom. Professor McGonagall was still in Gryffindor Tower. Professor Quirrell, however, had moved from the third-floor corridor to his office.

Harri's elation increased exponentially each step she took away from Myrtle's bathroom. By the time she reached the Quidditch pitch, she was nearly giddy. She slid easily next to Neville and Ron.

"What'd I miss?" she asked.

"Nothing, really," Ron said, never taking his eyes off the pitch.

Neville stared at her knowingly. "You were up to something, weren't you?"

She shook her head, but she couldn't help the smile on her face. She turned her attention to the match. Her plan was to watch the seekers for pointers. She caught sight of the Ravenclaw seeker first. He was loping around the pitch lazily.

She was searching for the Hufflepuff seeker when Fred and George sat on either side of her.

George leaned over to her. "You get it?" he asked in a low voice.

She patted her satchel and grinned. "Yep – got it!"

"Anyone see you?" Fred asked.

"Don't think so," she said. "Not that I noticed, anyway. Help me find the Hufflepuff seeker – what's his name again?"

"Diggory," George told her. "Cedric Diggory. Angelina fancies him, you know."

"Really?" she asked. "Well, which one is he?"

"The one after the snitch, obviously," Fred said, chortling.

Harri scowled. "I know _that_. Never mind, I see him."

And she did. Unlike the Ravenclaw seeker, whose name she didn't know, he seemed to actually be looking for the snitch instead of just flying aimlessly. Not that Harri could actually see anything as they were much too far away for her to be able to see the tiny snitch.

She watched as the seeker dodged a bludger and continued with his search for the snitch. The next bludger that was sent his way -- the Ravenclaws were a savage lot, weren't they? -- was sent flying by one of the Hufflepuff beaters. From then one, the beaters remained by Diggory's side.

"They are quite good, aren't they?" she asked Fred.

"The Ravenclaws? Nah, they're too forceful. Trying to compensate, I think, for their mediocre seeker. Their keeper's good enough, I suppose, but nothing compared to Oliver. It'll be easy for us to throttle them good when our turn to play them comes around," he replied.

Harri shook her head. "Not the Ravenclaws! The Hufflepuffs. Their beaters are quite good, wouldn't you say?"

Fred scowled. "Who cares about _them?" _

Beside her, George exclaimed loudly, "Look, I think Diggory's seen the snitch!"

Sure enough, Diggory was flying intently towards the Ravenclaws' goal. The Ravenclaw seeker, who had been halfway across the pitch, noticed and turned abruptly before heading to where Diggory was. They both came to a stop, however, a few feet apart, both looking to and fro for the lost snitch. Suddenly, however, Diggory darted to the side, nearly colliding with the Ravenclaw Keeper. His hand shot out and grabbed at something. Something that had a distinctly golden hue. The snitch. The crowd below went wild.

"DIGGORY CATCHES THE SNITCH, 150 POINTS TO HUFFLEPUFF! HUFFLEPUFF WINS THE GAME!" Lee had to yell to be heard over the applauding crowd.

"That was brilliant!" Harri cried. "D'you think we might be able to meet the other teams?"

Fred scowled again. "What do you want to do that for?"

She shrugged. "That would be the proper thing to do, wouldn't it? Showing support to a fellow team, I mean?"

George shook his head. "No way, Oliver'd skin us alive if he saw his consorting with the enemies. Now, c'mon, Harri. Let's go take a look at that toilet seat you've got hidden away, yeah?"

Harri grinned at the mention of the toilet seat. "Alright. I'll bet your sister will be stunned into silence when she opens it! She didn't think you would really do it, did she? Mind, you might not have if I hadn't suggested it. I think I'll write her a letter, just so she knows it was my idea and all. She won't mind, will she? We've never even met, I know, but I think it would be great fun to have a pen friend! Do you think she'll think I'm a bit odd for writing a complete stranger?" she said all at once. She was quite breathless when she finished.

Fred considered this. "Maybe, but then you are a bit odd," he allowed. "But I'll bet she'll be glad all the same. All she talked about over the summer was how _Harrietta Potter_ -- The Girl-Who-Lived -- was going to Hogwarts. She's obsessed, I tell you."

Harri frowned. She didn't like to think of her title in the wizarding world at all. It wasn't fun in the least -- especially as it only served to remind her that she'd lived and her parents hadn't. It was really quite gruesome -- and not in a good way!

George patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't listen to him. Ginny's a bit of a nutter, but she's not too bad. It's just that she's grown up listening to tales of your heroic deeds as her bedtime stories!"

She cut him off. "Heroic deeds?" she said, a grin appearing on her face.

Fred grinned as well. "Oh yes, heroic deeds indeed. She was particularly fond of the one where you single handedly dueled the Dark Witch Morgana to a most dreadful end."

George nodded. "That was a good one, but my favorite was the one where the heroic Miss Potter soothed the savage dragon with only her singing voice!"

Fred began to simper. "How wondrous it was that the dainty Miss Potter was able to sooth a savage beast without even mussing her hair --- _ouch_!" He yelled as Harri's stinging hex caught him in the arm. He narrowed his eyes at her, but stopped short at her dark glower.

When they were safely enclosed within in the twins' dormitory, Harri pulled the only slightly singed toilet seat out of her satchel.

"It's beautiful!" George exclaimed, wiping fake tears from the corner of his eyes.

"Never have I seen a more beautiful toilet seat in all my life!" Fred continued.

"It is rather lovely, isn't it?" Harri agreed as she pulled out her parchment, quill, and ink. She set about writing Ginny as the twins praised her for her cleverness.

The next morning, the incident with Myrtle's toilet was the talk of the school. Harri exchanged secret smiles with the twins over breakfast. The three of them had gone to the Owlry first thing that morning and mailed off their letter and package.

"You three are the ones who blew up that bathroom, aren't you?" Neville asked as they left the Great Hall to return to the common room.

Harri grinned. "I'm afraid I haven't the slightest idea in the world what you are talking about," she said airily. "I was with you at the match yesterday morning, wasn't I?"

Neville looked quite uncertain. "But you were late! What if you're caught? You'll be expelled."

Her face softened as she saw how concerned her friend truly was for her. "Don't worry," she told him. "I won't be in any trouble. Even if they suspected that it was us -- which they won't -- there won't be any proof."

That was true, at any rate, because at that very moment the only proof, their toilet seat, was en route to the Weasley family home in Ottery St. Catchpole.

"Alright," Neville said at last. "But promise me you won't get into any more trouble, Harri. You're my best friend, you know. It would be horrid if you were expelled!"

At Neville's proclamation, Harri beamed. "I won't be, now, come on before your friends follow us. I have to tell you something odd I noticed yesterday morning about the you-know-what you-know-where, and I don't want to be overheard."

Neville frowned but followed her anyway. "Hermione's nice," he protested. "She really wants you to be friends with her."

"I'm sure she's nice, but this is a secret -- our secret -- and I don't want her to know. She'd tell someone that we went there, you know she would."

Reluctantly, Neville nodded. "So, what did you notice? You haven't been back there, have you?" He looked horrified at the prospect.

"'Course I haven't! I don't have a death wish, you know," she said, tartly.

Neville muttered something that sounded quite like, "You could have fooled me," which Harri promptly ignored.

He sighed. "Alright, what is it?" Neville asked finally.

"Professor Quirrell is an odd sort-of fellow, wouldn't you say?" she started.

He shrugged. "He's scared of his own shadow, if that's what you mean."

Harri's smile broadened. "Exactly! He's not exactly the sort to go looking for danger, is he?"

"No way. You saw him at the Halloween feast, didn't you? He fainted dead away!"

"Why, then, do you think he would be hanging around the forbidden corridor -- the very one that contains the three-headed dog?"

Neville frowned, brow furrowed. "He wouldn't." His mouth dropped open at Harri's look. "Why would anyone who knew what was being kept there go there?"

Harri paused, chewing on her lower lip. "Well, that's the question, isn't it? Why would he?"

"Maybe," Neville said, slowly, "maybe it has something to do with what that thing is guarding. You said that Cerberus guarded the entrance to the Underworld, right?" At Harri's nod, he continued. "Maybe he's guarding something here."

"Alright. Maybe he is. That doesn't explain why Quirrell would willingly go there, does it?"

Neville was beginning to look rather excited about solving their problem. "Maybe he wants whatever that thing is guarding!"

"But what is it guarding?"

Neville shrugged. "Who knows? Could be anything."

"Whatever it is can't be any good. Else why would they use a Cerberus to guard it? It must be something very dangerous."

Neville's excited look turned to one of dread. "I don't know."

"Neither do I," she said. "But I think I know of someone who might. We better get to the common room. I've got loads of homework to do, not to mention I want to get started on the Potions essay that's due next week."

Neville groaned at the mention of Potions. "Professor Snape hates me," he moaned piteously.

They were nearly back to the common room when Harri remembered what she'd discovered before! Hagrid had said that whatever was in the school was between Professor Dumbledore and Flamel! How could she have forgotten? She supposed that she had been a bit distracted, what with Quidditch and the twins, but she vowed to start researching Flamel again. In the mean time, she'd use the twins' map to keep on eye on Quirrell.

"Harri, are you coming?" Neville asked.

Absently, Harri nodded and followed Neville through the portal and into the common room. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of excitement at unraveling what appeared to be a rather large mystery! There was nothing like impending doom to cure boredom!


	7. Chapter 7

I am so so so sorry that this has been so long in coming! The last month of classes was insane followed by moving and getting settled back into my parents house. Add in a not-so-fun batch of writer's block, and that's how I've been! Hopefully the next chapter won't take half as long. I have a portion of Unraveling of Time's next chapter written as well. I'll try to finish that in a few days.

* * *

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

_

* * *

_

Chapter Seven  
Of Boys, Girls, and Defense Professors

Harri woke up on the second Saturday in December to a most anticipated sight. The grounds of Hogwarts were covered with snow. She could hardly contain her excitement. It snowed in Surrey, of course, but she'd never seen so much snow in one place! It was brilliant. Without even bothering to change out of her pajamas, she bounded out of her dormitory and up the stairs to the third-year boys' dormitory.

The room was still dark as it was quite early. The only sound in the room was the soft snores coming from the three beds. She went over to George's bed and tapped the sleeping boy on the shoulder.

"George, wake up!" she whispered. He didn't stir, so she tried again, poking him harder this time. "Wake up, George!"

His eyes fluttered and his brow furrowed in confusion. "Harri, what're you doin' 'ere?"

"Trying to wake you up, obviously! Get up! It snowed last night. There must be nearly a foot of it out there."

"What's that noise?" came Fred's sleepy voice in the next bed over.

"It's Harri." That was Lee across the way.

Fred bolted upright. He had a look of horror on his face. "You can't be in here. It's not proper," he told her.

Harri frowned. "Of course, I can. I'm in here all the time, aren't I?"

"Well, yeah, but not when we're in bed! We're not even dressed!" Fred continued, sounding completely aghast.

In his bed, George snickered.

"Oh, honestly, Fred! It's not like I'm trying to look at your bits. Now, come on!

Fred blushed a brilliant red that went all the way up to even the tips of his ears. He groaned. "Alright, fine. I'll never be able to go to back to sleep now, anyway. We'll meet you in the common room in fifteen minutes."

Smiling, Harri left the room and headed back to her dormitory to get dressed.

Over the last several weeks, Harri and the twins had spent an inordinate amount of time in the library searching for any reference of a Flamel. For the most part, they'd been largely unsuccessful, but Harri still had hopes of finding it. She figured they had a well-earned break coming their way, and what better way to spend it than playing in the snow?

Both the twins and Lee, wearing disgruntled expressions, were waiting for Harri in the common room.

"Wha's all that?" asked George around a wide yawn, gesturing to Harri's satchel that was overflowing.

"You'll see," she crowed.

The three boys exchanged weary looks, but they followed the Girl-who-Lived dutifully as she led them outside.

As far as the eye could see, there were mounds of fluffy, white snow.

"Isn't this just wonderful?" Harri exclaimed. "What should we do first? We could make a snowman, or we could make snow angels, or –oh I know! – We could have a snowball fight!"

The three boys stared in wonder at her for a minute.

"Blimey, Harri, how much sugar have you had this morning?" Fred asked, breaking the silence.

"None," she chirped. "It's just – I've never seen so much snow before! It'll be great to finally be able to make a proper snowman! So, what should we do first?"

"Let's do the snowman first. We don't have enough people yet to have a real snowball fight –" Lee began but was cut off by George's snort.

"'Course we don't," he grumbled. "Everyone else is still asleep, aren't they?"

Harri ignored George thoroughly and gave Lee a broad smile. "Alright, snowman it is!"

It took nearly half-an-hour, after which the four friends could scarcely feel their hands, to make their snowman. He was a bit… well, lumpy, Harri had to admit, but she thought he was perfect as is! After rubbing her gloved hands together in a vain attempt to keep warm, she went to her discarded satchel and began pulling out her supplies.

She didn't have a top hat, of course, bit she figured one of her witch's hats would do. She hadn't wanted to part with her Gryffindor scarf, but luckily she'd brought along – at Aunt Petunia's insistence – her scarf and glove set. She handed the hat and scarf to Fred.

"You want our snowman to wear a _pink _scarf?" asked George, clearly offended.

"Well, no, but it's all we've got, isn't it?" she snipped.

"Never fear," Fred said with a mischievous grin on his freckled face. "I've got just the thing! I happen to know a very useful charm." He tossed the scarf to George, pulled out his wand, and cleared his throat. He then waved his wand with a flourish. "_Colorem ducere_!"

The scarf gave a bit of a shudder before the horrid pink hue began to darken. When it had finished it was, more or less, at least, nearly a crimson color.

"Much better," George commented, sounding very pleased with himself.

Fred nodded. "A great sight better than it was before."

After the scarf was in place, Harri pulled out the two buttons she'd managed to procure and pushed them into the face of their snowman. Lee came up behind her and handed her a bit of a licorice wand. One end was obviously chewed on, but the majority of it seemed in tact.

"Sorry," he said with a shrug. "I'm starved!"

But Harri wasn't angry in the least. She managed to form a suitable mouth after a fashion. Now the only thing missing was a nose. It seemed, however, that Fred'd been thinking the same thing because he fished around in his robe pockets before pulling out a number of objects.

"I don't think any of this'll work," he said after inspecting the lot. "Got anymore buttons on you, Harri? I reckon that'll do since we haven't got anything else."

Luckily, Harri _did_ have one last button. She pressed it onto the snowman's face before stepping back to consider their handiwork.

"Well done," she declared at last.

Lee and the twins nodded enthusiastically.

"Great – now, how about some breakfast?" Harri suggested decisively as her stomach gave a rather loud grumble.

"Alright," agreed George.

Fred and Lee both nodded once more. "We need to get changed anyway," Lee said. "I'm half-frozen."

"Plus," said Fred, rubbing his hands together, "We need to find a few more Gryffindors so that we can have a proper snowball fight afterward."

With that, the four friends headed inside.

By the time the other Gryffindors began trickling into the common room, Harri and the twins had changed out of their sopping wet clothing and were sipping mugs of steaming hot chocolate, compliments of the house elves.

Ron yawned widely and stretched before falling onto a vacant chair nearby. Neville, looking far more awake than Ron, sat down on the other side of Harri.

"Morning!" she chirped. "You two up for a snowball fight today?"

Neville rubbed his eyes and took in both Harri's and the twins' expressions - excitement in the case of the former and exhaustion in the case of the latter. "Er, maybe after we wake up a bit, yeah?"

Ron blinked as his eyes fell on the twins for the first time. "What're you two doin' up this early? I thought you didn't have Quidditch practice today."

"We don't," George grumbled, giving Harri a pointed look.

"This one," Fred said, nodding in Harri's direction, "woke us up at the ungodly hour of ... what time _was_ it?"

Harri shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe six?" She stood up and stretched. "Now that everyone's here, let's go down to the Great Hall. I'm positively starving."

Ron's stomach rumbled loudly. "Me too."

"You guys go ahead without me," Neville said, chewing on his lower lip. "I'll just wait here for Hermione."

Harri ignored the flare of irritation she felt and shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Breakfast was a rather subdued affair. The twins and Ron shoveled food sleepily into their mouths while Harri was busy trying to form the teams for what had quickly become a snowball fight of epic proportions. Or so Harri hoped. The problem was that the teams were a bit uneven. Fred, George, Lee, Ron, Neville, Angelina, Katie, Alicia, Seamus, and Dean had all agreed to play making the number of people playing total eleven. An even twelve would have been quite satisfactory, but Hermione, silly cow that she was, refused to play. Harri had even sunken so low as to ask Lavender Brown and Pavarti Patil if either of them would play. The answer had been no, of course.

Seamus Finnegan guffawed loudly when Harri expressed her displeasure. "I could have told you they'd say no!"

Harri didn't like his insinuation at all. She narrowed her eyes at the Irish boy as he continued to laugh. "And why's that?" she asked.

The twins exchanged nervous looks. They knew, from painful example, that Harri's temper was notoriously short.

Seamus, however, continued on blithely. "Well, they're just girls, aren't they? You can't expect them to want to play, can you?"

Harri's eyes were little more than slits and her cheeks had turned a rather unattractive shade of puce that clashed terribly with her ginger locks. "We," she said, gesturing towards Alicia, Angelina, Katie, and herself, "are girls, and we're all playing."

Seamus popped a ketchup-covered sausage in his mouth. "Not the same sort of girls they are. You lot are all Quidditch players. They are more... I dunno... girl-like. _You know_, the sort of girls that do their make-up and hair. The pretty sort."

"No, I'm afraid we don't know," Angelina said archly. She gave Seamus a look of utter contempt before turning to Alicia. "How about we make this interesting?"

Alicia quirked her lips into a smile. "Alright, I'll bite. What do you have in mind?"

"A little wager. I say that we girls can wipe the floor with them, even if we're outnumbered," she concluded.

Harri smiled broadly. "Brilliant," she breathed. "Think you can handle being beaten by a bunch of girls?"

Seamus was seemingly nonplussed. "Not going to happen."

Across from Harri, Fred and George's looks of apprehension had changed to looks of interest. "What sort of wager?" George asked Angelina. '

Alicia leaned over and whispered something into Angelina's ear. Angelina smiled mischievously before nodding. "If _we_ win, you lot have to be our personal servants for an entire week."

Lee didn't look at all pleased by that prospect. "And what sort of things would we have to do?"

"Oh," Alicia said airily. "Whatever we want. Within reason, of course. Carry our books back and forth to classes, fetch us anything we might need, you know - _whatever we want_."

Fred made a disgusted noise in his throat and opened his mouth to protest, but George cut him off. "And if _we_ win?"

The girls all exchanged a look. "The same," Harri said firmly.

"Alright," George agreed. "I feel a bit bad, though... it's like taking candy from a baby, isn't it, Fred?"

"We'll just see if you still feel that way after you've carried my books up to Divination for a week," Angelina told him. She stood up abruptly. "Come on, girls. We've got plans to make."

An hour later found the eleven Gryffindors, plus a small, but growing larger, audience, outside in the clearing near Hagrid's hut. The girls had been preparing since their departure from breakfast and were quite ready.

"Remember," Angelina whispered to Harri as the two teams parted ways, "stick close to Fred, if you can."

Confused, Harri just nodded. While discussing any weaknesses, both perceived and actual, the boys may have, Angelina and Alicia had both been adamant that Fred's one weakness was Harri herself. She didn't understand anymore now than she had earlier.

Hermione, who had grudgingly agreed to keep time, shot a shower of red and gold sparks into the air to signal the beginning of the match.

As Harri ducked and dived and dodged balls of snow and ice, she silently thanked Oliver for working them so hard during practice. Otherwise, more of the attempted hits would have landed. Harri tried to keep her eye on Fred at all time, but it was rather difficult. The twins had changed clothing, and everything was a bit of a blur at the moment, so Harri was having a hard time discerning which twin was actually Fred. Suffice it to say that she was thoroughly surprised when she felt a snowball hit her on the back of her head. She spun around to find one of the twins grinning widely. That was when the second snowball hit her head. She spun around once more to find another twin grinning at her.

"This means _war_," she snarled before reaching down and grabbing a hunk of snow. She formed a ball with it and sent it flying towards Twin A. Twin A ducked causing the snowball to hit Angelina head-on.

From that point on, teams were forgotten. It was every man for himself. As lunch time drew nearer, the only ones remaining on the field were the twins and Harri. Everyone else had begged off feigning exhaustion and hypothermia. Harri didn't want to be the one to give in though every muscle in her body was beginning to ache. Luckily, the twins' attention was focused elsewhere, so she had a chance to take a bit of a breather.

"Hey Harri, come here. Look what we found!"

Harri followed the direction of their gazes to where a rather odd figure was heading towards the Forbidden Forest. An odd figure wearing a badly misshapen purple turban. Professor Quirrell.

"Wonder what he's doing going towards the Forbidden Forest?" asked Harri, furrowing her brow.

"Nothing good, I reckon," Fred answered.

"Doesn't much look like he wants to be spotted, does it?" George asked.

"Make a snowball quick and follow me. _Hurry!"_

George and Harri did as requested before hurrying after Fred. They stopped when they'd gotten much closer to the professor. Fred pointed his wand towards the snowballs they were holding and muttered a spell. All three began to levitate. Then he muttered another spell sending the snowballs flying towards Professor Quirrell. Harri watched in wonder as the first snowball hit the professor directly in the back of his head. Instead of falling to the ground, however, the snowball began to follow the frightened professor as he ran around. This happened for nearly twenty minutes before the enchantment wore off. Once the snowballs fell lifeless to the ground, Professor Quirrell scrambled back into the castle.

The three friends dissolved into peals of laughter as they watched him disappear into the castle.

"Let's head inside," Fred suggested. "I'm knackered."

With a sigh, Harri nodded. "Me too."

The three headed inside only to run directly into Professor McGonagall. Her lips were pressed into a thin line. "I do hope you three have a good explanation for your actions. Poor Professor Quirrell is all a fright. The man is very nearly beside himself!"

All three Gryffindors affected a wide-eyed look of complete and utter innocence, but Professor McGonagall was not deterred in the least. "Ten points a piece from Gryffindor, and you three will spend the next two Saturdays serving detention with myself. _And_ I'll be writing to your parents about your poor conduct." At that, the twins began to grumble loudly. She ignored their protests quite thoroughly. "Now, I suggest the three of you get cleaned up and head down to the Great Hall for lunch before I decide to take anymore House points."

Then, the severe witch turned on her heels and stalked off towards the Great Hall.

Fred and George were still rather upset about McGonagall writing to their mother, but Harri wasn't thinking of that at all. She was thinking of Professor Quirrell.

"Rather odd, isn't it, that Quirrell would go into the Forbidden Forest? The man's afraid of nearly everything - even his students! I doubt he's brave enough to go roaming around through a creature-infested forest of his own free will, don't you?"

But neither Fred nor George had any answers for her. As they headed back to Gryffindor Tower, Harri resolved to keep a close eye on Professor Quirrell. This was the second time he'd turned up somewhere he ought not to be, and she wanted to know why.


	8. Chapter 8

Adventures in Witchcraft and Wizardry  
_or_  
There and Back Again: A Witch's Tale

By _Koinaka_

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* * *

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Chapter Eight  
Of Christmas Traditions

The weeks following up to Christmas were far too uneventful for Harri's tastes. However, now that the Christmas holidays were approaching, everyone, even the professors, had been whipped into a frenzy of good cheer. Professor McGonagall had even managed to give Harri a tight-lipped smile when she'd brought around the parchment so that those who wished to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays could sign up. Harri staying for the Christmas holidays had been a point of contention with Aunt Petunia for quite a while, but she'd finally managed to wheedle and cajole the needed permission. After all, she'd never experienced a Christmas in the magical world she now called home.

Not that she recalled at least. She couldn't rightly count her first, now could she?

Hagrid had been especially jolly as of late, his already ruddy face an alarming shade of puce due in part to drink and the wind that whipped around the castle chilling all of its inhabitants to the core. In fact, the temperature had become so frigid that scarcely any of the Gryffindors were brave enough to venture outside of their common room except when it was absolutely necessary.

However, despite the plummeting temperatures and the nagging letters from home, especially in regards to her _behavior_ - which, her aunt was very quick to say, was most unbecoming of a _young lady_ - Harri could not be any happier. Even the nasty comments made by Draco Malfoy weren't enough to quell her enthusiasm – especially when she'd heard the news that she was the only first year girl staying at Hogwarts over the hols.

When Harri entered the Great Hall to discover it fully decorated for Christmas, she hadn't been able to suppress the gasp she'd let out at the sight. It was, in a word, brilliant - a true winter wonderland such as she had never seen. The walls were lined with looming Christmas trees, each one - twelve in all - decorated uniquely. Some looked rather like one she'd seen once in front of Harrod's when she'd accompanied her aunt on their annual shopping trips into London. Others, however, were decorated by completely magical means. Harri's favorite was covered by dozens of glittering fairy lights made with tiny life-size fairies who flitted this way and that. A delighted trill of laughter had escaped the first time one of the fairies landed on her outstretched hands. The trees were not the only decoration, not by far. Leaves of holly as well as mistletoe also filled the room, giving the entire Great Hall a fragrant and festive atmosphere.

The only thing that had put a damper, however slight it may have been, on her cheery mood was the fact that they were no closer to discovering who Flamel was even after spending ages pouring through book after book in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. Nor had they discovered why Professor Quirrell had been caught twice in places that he ought not to have been.

The day before the students were to leave Hogwarts was turning out to be dreadfully worrisome. Gryffindor Tower had become the epicenter of a rather large scale panic as students hurried to and fro packing and, in the case of Neville, searching for missing items.

"Gran will _murder _me if I can't find my wand," lamented Neville. "It was my father's, you know." He sighed heavily. "Not that it works for me, really. Still..." He let the sentence hang loose, wringing his hands as he paced back and forth.

Harri gave her friend a sympathetic smile before shooting a glare at Hermione who was sitting opposite of her on Neville's bed. She'd promised Neville that she'd spend some time with him before he left, even if that meant enduring Hermione's obnoxious presence.

At Neville's lament, Hermione made a most disagreeable noise. "_Really_, Neville! Honestly," she huffed as she deftly pulled the discarded wand from its place underneath the bed. "You really ought to take better care of your belongings."

Neville let out a sigh of relief at the sight of the wand. "Thanks, Hermione, you're a life saver."

Hermione looked quite pleased with herself over Neville's praise. Harri scowled. A few minutes later, with Neville's belongings - _all of them_- packed neatly into his trunk, the three of them headed down to the common room. Harri made a bee-line over to where Ron, Seamus, and Dean were playing Exploding Snap, Neville and Hermione following behind her. She dropped to the floor beside Ron unceremoniously. While she and Ron would never be as close as she and the twins, the two had bonded over their mutual dislike of their Potions professor. Snape had been particularly nasty towards Harri in recent weeks even though her potion making had been perfectly satisfactory. Of course, her potion making skills, however rudimentary they may be, had no bearing on the house points he seemed to deduct for absolutely nothing.

The boys had just started a new game before their arrival so Harri settled back to watch. The twins weren't due to arrive for another hour as they were both serving detentions – detentions that had nothing to do with the idea that Harri had had the previous week to turn Snape's hair a festive shade of red. She hadn't _forced_ the twins to try spiking the Potion Master's drink themselves, had she? Quite the opposite, in fact. Still, she did feel rather guilty that they had been caught. It was a testament to their friendship that they hadn't snitched her out as well.

"Say, Neville, what sort of things do you and your Gran do to celebrate Christmas?" Harri asked curiously.

Neville shrugged. "Oh, you know, just the normal things, really." He gave his friend a wry smile. "Gran's not much for merry-making, you know, but she makes a mean eggnog! Uncle Algie is very fond of it! He always drinks loads of it at dinner. Makes Auntie Enid mad as he becomes... well, more overbearing than usual when intoxicated! What sort of things does your family do? I can't believe you were able to convince your aunt to let you stay over the hols. I tried, but Gran wouldn't budge!"

"It was a very near thing," she said as she stretched out on the floor, her head resting on her folded arms. "We do all sorts of things. Some of it's for appearances only, though. Like attending the Christmas service at one of the parishes in Surrey and donating to the toy drives sponsored by Aunt Petunia's ladies club. Appearances are very important to Aunt Petunia. It wouldn't do for any of the neighbors to say that the Dursleys are uncharitable. Even if it is true," she added with a grin. "We always bake loads of Christmas goodies, too. Like gingerbread men decorated with candies and buttery sugar cookies covered in frosting and powdered sugar. Sometimes, I think Dudley would rather have the sweets than his presents! Just sometimes, mind you."

"Wow, that sounds brilliant," Ron interjected as his stomach gave an answering rumble.

"It is!" Harri agreed. "Then, on Christmas eve, Dudley and I always camp out in front of the telly watching all sorts of Christmas specials and eating sweets until we're fit to burst! It's the only time all year long that he's actually tolerable, I think!"

Her annual Christmas baking was the one thing she was going to miss. She chewed on her lower lip as Hermione began talking about what her family did to celebrate Christmas. She effectively blocked her out as a plan began to form in her mind.

Perhaps she could still do her baking here! The elves were quite fond of her and the twins. Whenever they came around, which was often, they would ply the three of them with far more food than any of them could eat in one sitting. And they _had_ been kind enough to donate the pumpkins for them at Halloween.

"Mum bakes a lot, too," Ron said after a minute. "Fudge and rum balls, mostly, but cookies as well." His expression turned dreamy for a moment before he shook himself out of it, blushing furiously as he did so. "I reckon she'll send _you_ some, Harri. She's rather taken with you, you know. Ginny's never had many girlfriends, so she's really keen on the two of you becoming the best of friends."

Ever since Halloween, Harri had been exchanging letters with the youngest Weasley, Ginny. Harri thought it was great fun to have a pen friend. She'd tried once or twice when she was younger, but it'd never really took. A letter from Ginny, however, was never boring. She told Harri all about what it was like growing up in a wizarding house - _Rather like Muggles, I guess, only... well, you know, with magic _- what it was like growing up with the twins - _Don't eat anything they give you! _- and her parents - _Mum's alright, but Dad's barmy. He's right obsessed with Muggles. He collects all sorts of odd things, batteries and plugs mostly._ In exchange, Harri would regale her with tales from Hogwarts and answer her questions about living in the muggle world. Not to mention, she'd send her the occasional spoil from their latest prank.

Harri and the other first year Gryffindors were involved in a rather heated debate over muggle Christmas tales and legends as opposed to wizarding ones when the twins finally returned from detention.

Harri's face brightened considerably at the sight of them.

The twins took one look at Harri and exchanged nervous glances.

"Don't trust that look," Fred muttered, shuffling back and forth.

George sighed exasperatedly at his twin as he rolled back onto the balls of his feet, a lazy grin spreading across his face. "Alright, let's have it. What sort of mayhem have you been contemplating in our absence?"

"The sort that earns us a fortnight of detention with Snape!" Fred grumbled, scowling fiercely.

Harri shot a glare at Fred before turning to George and widening her eyes innocently. "Who says I've been contemplating mayhem? I'll have you know that I'm doing nothing of the sort. Neville and Ron here were just telling me all about the differences between muggle and wizarding Christmas traditions."

The twins eyed her expectantly waiting for her to continue, or - more than likely - waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"And then I realized that since I'm staying here for the hols, I'll be missing some of my favorite traditions." She let out a gusty sigh, causing her hair to be in even more of a disarray.

"What sort of traditions?" asked George, his blue eyes bright with curiosity.

"Every year me and my aunt do loads of holiday baking. You know, gingerbread men and all that. It's a shame that I won't be able to do it this year. It's ever so much fun."

"Baking?" The twins asked simultaneously. Fred's brow was furrowed in confusion while George sported a small frown.

"Why would we need to bake when the house elves always have loads of sweets?" Fred asked.

Harri gave them an incredulous look. "What's the fun in _that_?"

"Eating it, I always thought," George said. "But if you're really so keen on baking, I bet the house elves wouldn't mind you borrowing a bit of the kitchen. They're always in such a state over you."

Fred puffed up and fell into such a low bow that his nose nearly reached the floor. "_Anything _for Mistress Potter!" he proclaimed in the perfect imitation of a house elf.

She ignored Fred thoroughly, clapping her hands together once. "Exactly! So, I was thinking that we should start early tomorrow but not too early. Wouldn't want to be in their way after breakfast. What do you say?"

"We don't bake!" the twins said at once.

"We eat," said George.

Fred nodded his head fervently. "But we don't bake."

Harri pretended she hadn't heard their protests. She knew just as well as _they_ knew that they would give in eventually. "I wonder if they'll have all the things we'll need! I hope they do!" They spent the res of the evening lounging about in the common room. Fred and George joined in a game of Exploding Snap while Harri made a list of the ingredients they would need for in the morning as well as those Harri planned on sending treats too - namely Hagrid, Neville, and Ginny.

After seeing Neville and Lee off the next morning, Harri and the twins headed down to the kitchens. As the twins had said, they hadn't had any trouble getting the elves to agree to allow Harri to bake in a small corner of the rather large kitchen.

An hour later, the twins, covered nearly head to toe in flour, were more than a little disgruntled. Harri, on the other hand, was very pleased. While she hadn't been particularly keen to bake with magic, she had to admit that it save loads of time that she generally spent waiting anxiously.

They still had to wait but only for a short time for _all_ of their gingerbread men and sugar cookies to finish cooking, but it would have taken the better part of an afternoon to bake all of those without magic – especially considering the dough often needed to set.

"How come _you _managed to not be covered in flour?" George asked trying – and failing – to wipe the flour off his face.

"I _warned _you not to get to close because I wasn't exactly sure how to use the charm, It's not my fault you didn't listen." Harri let out a happy little sigh as she turned to the candy the elves had gathered for them to decorate their cookies with. "Cheer up," she told them. "The next part is the best part of all."

"Eating them?" Fred asked hopefully.

"No, decorating them, of course!"

Just as Harri predicted, the twins like decorating much more than they liked baking. This was probably because they ate nearly as much of the candy as they used to decorate their gingerbread men with. By the time they left the kitchen carrying one basket full of the decorated cookies and another filled with sweets from the elves, the twins were in a much better mood.

When they returned to Gryffindor Tower they found an unhappy Ron playing chess by himself. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of them. "Where've you lot been? You've been gone for ages."

"Baking, of course," Harri said.

"You could've invited me, you know."

"We could have," Fred agreed.

"But then you would've come – " George continued.

"And we definitely couldn't have that!" They both said in unison.

Harri shot them a look as Ron's ears turned red. "Whatever," he muttered angrily turning back to his chess game.

"Why don't you come with us now?" she asked. "Lee left his wireless here for the hols, so we're going to go up and listen to the Quidditch match. It's Puddlemere versus the Harpies."

"Alright," Ron said happily.

"It's sure to be an interesting one," George commented as they headed up the stairs to the third year's dorm.

Beside him, Fred scowled. "Yeah, it'd be a shame if that pretty boy Hiagle got his face bashed in with a bludger. Gwenog's vicious with a beater bat, you know. Bet you wouldn't fancy him, then, would you Harri?"

"You know what would be a shame?" Harri asked archly. "You spending Christmas Day in the Hospital Wing…."

"Hey now, none of this! It's Christmas Eve, it is," George reminded them. "Peace and joy and all that rot."

A stinging hex was Harri's only reply.


End file.
